India’s Saketh Myneni closer to US Open main draw
NEW YORK: India’s Saketh Myneni is one win away from making the singles main draw of the U.S. Open as he advanced to the final Qualifying round with a 7-6 (6), 6-4 win over local lad Mitchell Krueger.
Saketh, ranked 143rd in the ATP chart, now has a chance to play in the singles main draw of a Grand Slam for the first time in his career as he faces Pedja Krstin from Serbia in the third round.
The big-serving Indian had lost in the third Qualifying round at the Australian Open and bowed out in the second round of the French Open early this year.
It was a tight first set in which Myneni recovered from an early break to make it 4-4 and prevailed in the nerve-wracking tie-breaker.
In the second set, it was Myneni, who drew first blood in the seventh game and served out the match in the 10th after battling hard for one hour and 30 minutes.
The Indian now needs to down his Serbian opponent, who is placed 57 places below him at 200 in the ATP rankings.
However, Pedja goes into the contest 1-0 up in Head-to-Head record with a win over the Indian in Turkey in May last year. MUSCAT: Oman went down to Iran in a thrilling contest and settled for second place in the inaugural Continental Beach Soccer Tournament organised in Ordos, China on Thursday.
In an exciting and well-contest- ed final, the Iranians denied the reigning Asian champions Oman and won the match by a 6-3 margin to clinch the top honours.
The Iranians also swept the individual awards with Amir Akhbari winning both the best player of the tournament and top scorer awards and P. Hosseini taking the best goalkeeper prize.
Meanwhile, former Asian champions Japan settled for third place after defeating Vietnam 8-4 in the third-place playoff match.