Sipaeya-Amritraj win ITF doubles

Sunil Kumar Sipaeya and US-born Stephen Amritraj bounced back from two match points down to subdue home favourites Tushar Liberhan and Navdeep Singh to bag the doubles title at the USD 10,000 SAIL-ITF Futures men's tennis event in Chandigarh on Friday.

Sunil and Amritraj, son of former Davis Cupper Anand, got the better of Liberhan and Singh by 4-6, 7-5, 7-6 (4) in a 2-hour-27-minute battle on the Centre Court under searing hot conditions.

The top seeds were in trouble in the second set, with 15-40 down in the tenth game. Liberhan and Singh, having won the first set 6-4, were leading 5-4 on serve and came tantalisingly close from closing out the match. But better serving and sheer nerve from former national champion Sipaeya kept the team in contention.

Not only did they hold serve but also went onto break their young opponents in the 12th game and level the match.

Sipaeya-Amritraj, serving second in the deciding set, were always playing catch-up, but held on to push the set into tie-break.

The duo pocketed USD 630 and 18 points while the runners-up received a cheque of USD 330.

Meanwhile, the Amritrajs had more reasons to celebrate as Stephen's cousin Prakash set up a date with top seeded Karan Rastogi in the singles final to be held on Saturday.

Prakash, whose ranking had nosedived to 817 after a lengthy injury lay-off, packed off Punna Vishal 6-2, 6-1 in less than an hour.

Rastogi ousted fourth seed and 739th ranked Vijay Kannan in straight sets 6-2, 6-2 in 64 minutes.

Prakash, son of the legendary Vijay, broke Punna in the first game of the first set to gain a 2-0 lead and widened the gap with a break in the fifth game.

Punna broke back in the sixth game but Prakash served out the set without trouble.

Prakash's serve and volley then proved to be too much for Punna who was broken thrice in the next set and lost the match.

Results:

Doubles, final: Sunil Kumar Sipaeya and Stephen Amritraj bt Navdeep Singh and Tushar Liberhan 4-6, 7-5, 7-6 (4).

Singles, semifinals: Karan Rastogi bt Vijay Kannan 6-2, 6-2; Prakash Amritraj bt Vishal Punna 6-2, 6-1.