Murali enters veterans’ title match

MUSCAT: Defending champion R. Murali entered the final of the veterans singles at the Falcon Insurance Companysponsored Annual Tennis Tournament organised by the Indian Social Club (ISC).

The top seed had to endure the resilience, determination and hard-work put in by fourth seed Percy Pereira before edging to a 6-1, 3-6, 10-7 victory in the semifinal. Percy who had outplayed Daraius Basu 8-6 in the quarterfinal, was outdone by Murali’s game.

After a comfortable first set, Murali looked set for a convincing victory which was not to be. Percy bounced back to win the second set as Murali struggled in the third set super tie-break with flagging energy levels against Percy who ran to every corner of the court to retrieve. Murali held on to a slender lead to win his berth in the final.

Meanwhile, Karthikeyan V. caused a major upset in the veeterans’ singles when he upset third seed Ronnie Pereira in the pre-quarterfinals. Ronnie broke in the first and fifth games to take a commanding 4-1 lead.

Karthikeyan took stock and gradually reeled off the next three games to take the lead. Breaks were traded and Ronnie gained the crucial 7-6 lead and was serving for the match when Karthikeyan broke for force the tie-breaker. Karthikeyan raced to a 5-1 lead in the tie-breaker and wrapped up the match for a place in the last eight. KK Girish was in top form as he demolished R. Jayakumar 8-0 to line-up a quarterfinal date against Karthikeyan.

Top seed Vatsal Manikandan was scheduled to take on second seed Praneeth Raj in the boys U-10 singles final when this report went to press. Vatsal reached final with a 8-1 win over R. Rohit while Praneeth defeated Rohan Sebastian by the same margin.