Harsh Mankad entered his first semi-final since his return from a year-long injury lay-off when he advanced to the last four of the US $ 10,000 ITF Futures in Mumbai on Thursday.
Mankad beat Sri Lanka's Harshana Goddamane 6-1, 6-4 in the quarterfinals and is the lone Indian surviving in the singles.
Earlier, Divij Sharan lost 6-7, 1-6 to second-seeded Korean Hyun-Woo Nam and Purav Raja's impressive streak was snapped after a 4-6, 4-6 defeat to US qualifier Ryan Young.
Sharan stayed with the Korean throughout the first set but after a string of loose volleys in the tie-break, which ended 7-0 in favour of Nam, he seemed to have lost the plot.
A compulsive volleyer, Sharan was unable to put away the balls even after playing his opponent out of court. He was unable to hold serve in the second set; winning the only the third game of the set off Nam's serve. The Korean, for his part, played solid tennis from the back of the court and employed his backhand to pass Sharan.
"I don't know what happened," said the Delhi lad. "He is stronger from the baseline so there was no point in trying to rally with him. And it's not like my game plan was not working, I did well in the first set but after the tie-break I made a lot of errors."
Mankad faces fourth seed Nathan Thompson, who eased past the temperamental Vaja Uzakov 6-2, 6-2, while Nam will take on Young in the semi-finals on Friday.
© 2024 Rediff.com -