Lucknow’s Saasa enters AITA Series final
LUCKNOW : Just a fortnight ago, Lucknow’s Saasa Katiyar bagged two silver medals, one each in singles and team event, at the 15th Sub-Junior National Soft Tennis Championship at Sri Nagar. Her hunger for winning continued even at the AITA Championship Series here on Wednesday as she made it to the Under-16 singles final, notching up a fascinating straight sets win.
Katiyar, who loves hitting the ball hard, played true to her billing of being second seed in the category and outplayed local challenger Arundhati Dagur 6-2, 6-1, at the LPG Tennis academy, Now, she meets West Bengal’s Aleena Farid, who defeated Maharashtra’s Vaishnavi Chauhan 6-4, 6-1 in other semi-final.
Before making it to the Under-16 final, Aleena, top seeded in under-14 category, too made a strong statement, brushing aside local challenger Aairah 6-0, 6-0 in the first semi-final to setup a title clash with Maharashtra’s Vaishnavi Chauhan, who came from behind to beat Arundhati Dagur 7-6 (1), 0-6, 6-4 in the second semi-final of the day.
Top seed Mokul Lodhi continued his good run in the under-16 boys singles quarterfinals, defeating compatriot Anuj Kumar 6-1, 6-1, whereas in other quarterfinals, Dhananjay Tibrewal beat Aditya Acharya 6-3, 6-1, Sanidhya Dwivedi beat Atharva Kapoor 6-2, 6-2 and Adhiraj Thakur defeated Satyam Prakasah 6-1, 6-2.
The under-14 boys singles final also witnessed easy outings for most of the winners. Aditya Acharya beat Aarav Bhaskar 6-0, 6-2, Dhananjay Tibrewal beat Sanidhay Dwivedi 6-2, 6-1, Kshitij Sinha beat Tejas Singh 7-5, 6-3, Abhishek Subramanian beat Adhiraj Thakur 6-4, 7-5, 6-4.