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NEW DELHI (India):
Pakistan tennis star Aisam Qureshi overwhelmed Harsh Mankad of
India in the final of the ITF Futures Tennis Championship in
New Delhi and claimed his third singles title in a row in
international tennis with a score of 7-6(4),6-4.
Last week he won the
championship in Dera Dun, India and week before that in
Thailand. With this victory he has won 15 Singles matches in a
row.
Harsh Mankad, the Davis Cup
player of India and No. I seed of this championship was rated
favourable for this title match at R.K.Khanna Tennis Complex.
During most of the match he
looked visibly overwhelmed by Aisam's big serves and more
powerful game. Aisam won the toss and easily secured is first
service game and so was done by Harsh.
In the fourth game, however
Aisam twice passed Harsh and hit a sizzling backhand down the
line winner to break him and got onto 3-1 lead.
The very next game saw Harsh
hitting back forcefully to break Aisam's serve. Again at 3-3
Harsh played with precision and power to take 15-40 lead on
Aisam's serve but thanks to two timely aces. Aisam survived
this scare and saved two break points.
At 6-6 both players played
tie breaker with a bit of nervousness but at 4-4 Aisam hit an
ace to take a 5-4 lead and courtesy of a bullet like backhand
winner he was up 4-6 on Harsh's serve.
Nervous Harsh could not stay
composed and hit a double fault which cost him first set. In
the second set Harsh was the one to break Aisam's serve at 1-2
and had a 3-1 lead but was effectively dealt with and his lead
was neutralized in the next service game.
At 4-4 Aisam charged the net
repeatedly and forced three errors on Harsh Mankad to take a
5-4 lead. At this state he made no mistake to serve out for
the set and the match. The match lasted for two hours and
Aisam hit seven aces.
Earlier in the Doubles Final
Aisarh & Harsh teamed together beat Mustafa Ghouse & Vishal
Uppal 3-6,6-1,6-2. On this way to Singles Final Aisam beat
Sergei Krotiouk of Russia with a 6-1,6-2 score and Dutch
player Melvyn Op Der Heijde with a 6-1, 6-3 score.
In the Pre-quarter Final he
beat another Russian player Michael Lidovskikh 6-3, 6-2 and
before that Kamala Kannan of India 6-3, 6-4.
Aisam won the championship
without dropping any set in any match. Next he will play an
ITF Futures match in Mumbai, India.
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