HINDUSTAN TIMES  - Tuesday, Oct 29, 2002 HT Correspondent

It was the turn of a strapping young Delhi lad to hog the limelight on the opening day of the DSCL junior National tennis championships here on Monday.

Fifteen-year-old Sandeep Kumar, who made his way to the main draw as a qualifier, showed great fighting qualities in defeating seventh seed Siddharth Gulati 2-6, 6-3, 6-4 to script the only upset.

On a day which saw a plethora of matches, Rupesh Roy and K Pooja -- the top seeds in the boys and girls under 16 sections -- posted contrasting wins.

While Roy was in ruthless form and crushed Farid Alam 6-0, 6-1; Pooja was stretched to the limit before prevailing over Medha Paritala 6-3, 5-7, 6-2.

Sandeep was far from convincing in the opening set. He committed a string of unforced errors especially on the backhand to be broken in the seventh and ninth games as he lost the set 2-6. In the second set, Sandeep kept his cool despite being broken in the third game.

He lifted his game and came up with some brilliant passes to break Siddharth in the next game. This break seemed to lift Sandeep as he retrieved whatever Siddharth threw at him and proceeded to pocket the set as he broke Gulati once again.

In the decider, Sandeep could not be denied as he kept his nerve to prevail 6-4 and will meet Pranav Gandhi in the next round.

Results (1st Round)

Boys under 16:

Rupesh Roy b Farid Alam 6-0, 6-1; Nithyaesh Natraj b Honey Rana 6-3, 7-5; Allan Gomes b M Vinod 6-2, 6-1; S Prateek b Kaushik Das 6-4, 6-1; Nitish Raaj b Akshay Bajoria 7-5, 6-4; Ananth Bhaskar b Samriddh Burman 6-0, 6-1; Rohan Gide b PC Vignesh 6-2, 6-4; Sanam Singh b R Kingshuk 6-4, 6-4; M Saket Sai b Arjun Somsekhar 6-3, 1-6, 6-4; Kaushik Raju b Arnav Jain 6-2, 6-2; Karan Dhillon b Manu Bajpai 6-4, 2-6, 6-4; Pranav Gandhi b Raj Kumar Singh 6-3, 3-6, 6-0; Sandeep Kumar b Siddharth Gulati 2-6, 6-3, 6-3;Vivek Shokeen b Premjit Meetei 6-3, 6-2.