Mumbai, Mar 20 (IANS): Unseeded Intikhab Ali pulled off a huge upset in the men's 40+ category, accounting for top seed Aditya Khanna to storm into the semi-finals of the Jayant Roy Memorial S400 ITF Mumbai Tennis Tournament at the MSLTA, here, on Sunday.
Using guile and power in equal doses, Mumbai's Intikhab, an experienced coach, wore down the much fitter-looking Aditya Khanna from Delhi, winning 6-3, 6-2.
Intikhab will take on fourth seed Ramzan Shaikh in the semis, who got the better of sixth seed Badri Vishal 6-2, 6-4. Also advancing to the last four were second seed Narendra Choudhary and third seed Kamlesh Shukla with straight-set wins over Riyaz Ahmed and Ajay Vaswani, respectively.
The men's 35+ singles matches saw former pros Yannick Nedlord and Ranjeet Murugesan book their places in the last four with straight wins over Ganesh Devkhile and Aditya Sanghvi, respectively. Also making the last four was second seed Sandeep Pawar with a 6-3, 6-4 win over Vinoy Parakunnil.
RESULTS:
Men's single 35 (quarters): Yannick Nelord (IND) bt Ganesh Devkhile (IND) 6-3, 6-1; Ranjeet Murugesan (IND) bt Aditya Sanghvi (IND) 6-0, 6-0; Sandeep Pawar (IND) bt Vinoy Parakunnil (IND) 6-3, 6-4; Vikas Choudhari (IND) bt Ribhaskar Thoudam (IND) 6-2, 6-4;
Men's doubles 35 (quarters): Anand Moorthy (IND)/Aditya Sanghvi (IND) bt Ganesh Devkhile (IND)/Milind Marne (IND) 6-0, 6-2; Ravindranath Pandey (IND)/Vikas Choudhari (IND) bt Vinoy Parakunnil (IND)/Sandeep Pawar (IND) 6-1, 6-2.
Men's single 40 (quarters): Kamlesh Shukla (IND bt Ajay Vaswani (IND)6-2, 6-2; Intikhab Ali (IND) bt Aditya Khanna (IND) 6-3, 6-2; Narendra Singh Choudhary (IND) bt Riyaz Ahmed (IND) 6-3, 6-1; Ramzan Shaikh (IND) bt Badri Vishal (IND) 6-2, 6-4.
Men's doubles 40 (quarters): Ashish Khanna (IND)/ Dilip Mohanty (IND) bt Ameet (IND)/Siddharth Sirohiya 6-0, 6-0; Intikhab Ali (IND)/Girish Mishra (IND) bt Aakash Kale (IND)/Rohan Manik (IND) 6-1, 6-3; Kamlesh Shukla (IND)/Mandar Wakankar (IND) bt Gautam Padmanabhan (IND)/Hiroshi Takei (JPN) 6-1, 6-3.
Men's single 50 (semis): Rajesh Ganapathy (IND) bt Dinesh Laungani (IND) 6-0, 6-2; Neelkanth Damre (IND) bt Pravin Jadhav (IND) 6-2, 2-1 (Conceded);
Men's doubles 50 (semis): Rajesh Ganapathy (IND)/Rvrk Ranga Rao (IND) bt Bharat Singh (IND)/ Nirmal Wadhwani (IND) 6-0, 6-0; Kankaria N (IND)/Salvi D (IND) bt Anil Kapur (IND)/Dinesh Laungani (IND) 6-2, 6-1.