It was double delight for J Vishnu Vardhan as he won both men's singles and doubles crown while Veteran Rushmi Chakravorthi emerged victorious in the women's field at the Indian Oil Servo National Grasscourt Tennis Championship 2007 in Kolkata on Saturday.
Sixth seed Vardhan earned a wild card for the Chennai Open by carving out a straight set 6-3 6-4 triumph over fourth seed Divij Sharan after a 128-minute final at the Calcutta South Club.
Vardhan later partnered Vinod Sridhar to get the better of the Tamil Nadu pair of N Sriram Balaji and VM Ranjeet 6-2, 7-6 (9-7) in the doubles summit clash.
The one sided women's final saw old warhorse Rushmi breeze past eighth seeded Delhi girl Shalini Sahoo 6-3 6-3.
Divij never looked in his element and rarely moved up to the net, as Vardhan capitalised on the unforced errors of the Delhi boy.
The two players traded breaks in the first two games, before Vardhan demolished his rival in the fifth game and retained serve in the next to open up a 4-2 lead.
However, Vardhan's serve suddenly seemed to have deserted him in the marathon eighth game in which he committed half a dozen double faults. There were eight deuces but the error-prone Divij failed to convert the chances.
The close shave acted like an elixir for Vardhan, who broke the higher ranked player in the next game to finish off the set in 65 minutes.
The second set, lasting 61 minutes, went with serves till the seventh game before Vardhan got a breakthrough in the eighth game. But Divij paid back the compliments in the ninth to make the scoreline 4-5.
However, serving to save the match, Divij again faltered and Vardhan pocketed the winers cheque of Rs 35,100. Divij had to be content with prize money of Rs 24,300.
Rushmi, an Indian Oil Corporation employee, took 87 minutes to put it past Shalini.
The Delhi girl started off in style breaking Rushmi in the second game and then retained her serve to open up a 3-0 lead.
It was a wake up call for Rushmi, who started coming up to the nets more often to unsettle the game plan of the younger opponent. She took the next six games on the trot to close the set in 49 minutes.
Rushmi's serve was tested only in the sixth game where she trailed 0-40, before letting loose power-packed serves to weather away any chance of an upset.
The 36-minute second set began with Rushmi dropping serve in the opening game but she broke back in the fourth and sixth games before finishing off the match.
Treta Bhattacharyya was given a special cash reward by the Bengal Tennis Association for her stupendous performance in this Championship. Treta reached the semifinals in her maiden Grasscourt National appearance.
© 2024 Rediff.com -