HINDU - Friday, Oct 25, 2002 - By Kamesh Srinivasan

Shruti Dhawan shrugged off her self-imposed shackles for once to beat her doubles partner, the top-seeded Sheethal Goutham 5-7, 6-4, 6-2 in the quarterfinals of the DSCL National tennis championship at the DLTA Complex here on Thursday.

From what looked like a familiar story of missed chances, Shruti was able to bounce back from being a set down to script an authentic win. In fact, she was serving 5-4 before losing her way in the first set.

The 20-year-old Chandigarh girl, who has not lived up to her potential as yet for many reasons, Shruti played a lot more free in the second and third sets, even as Sheethal looked to be losing the speed in her movements.

The fifth-seeded Shruti served well after breaking Sheethal decisively in the ninth game of the second set, and was able to sustain the good spell till the finish.

The 21-year-old Sheethal, who had dominated Shruti and the rest of the field in the $ 5000 circuit a few months back, tended to get irritated with some of the calls. She, thus, lacked the strength of concentration to play with usual flair when it mattered.

In the semifinals, Shruti will meet the third-seeded Sonal Phadke, who played well enough to beat the seventh-seeded Liza Pereira in straight sets. If she tunes herself to the task on hand, Sonal can be more than a handful for any player in this field.

Meanwhile, there was another interesting encounter in which the 17-year-old Isha Lakhani, a member of the Asian Games squad, pulled past the second-seeded Radhika Tulpule, despite missing three matchpoints in the second set, when she led 5-2. Radhika could not sustain the dramatic recovery into the third set, and was a mute spectator as Isha ran away with the decider.

The diminutive Isha has the heart of a champion and the willingness to work past better-endowed opponents. She, however, will have to be at her sharp best to work her way ahead of the fourth-seeded Ankita Bhambri, who stopped the good run of the sixth-seeded Geeta Manohar for the loss of three games.

If that was the scenario in the women's section, there was considerable excitement in the men's event as well, as the defending champion Vijay Kannan was passed at the net with conviction by the sixth-seeded Vinod Sridhar.

The left-handed Vinod cruised to a 6-4, 6-1 victory in double quick time as he played close to his best, getting his shots into the corners against an opponent who was a trifle slower than his usual self.

"I haven't played for some time as my fractured wrist was healing. I lacked the strength of training, and Vinod played very well to exploit it,'' said Vijay, the Southern Railway employee from Chennai, who trains with coach T. Chandrasekaran. It was a sweet revenge for Vinod as he had lost to Vijay in the semifinals of the last edition.

"I didn't expect that the match would be so easy. I knew that he can come back even when he was down 1-4 in the second set. But my passing shots worked well today,'' said Vinod, who will meet wild card entrant Somdev Dev Varman in the semifinals.

Somdev, the National junior champion, who has lost in the junior section here, was able to bring out his best when it mattered to beat the strongly-built qualifier Kamala Kannan in three sets, in front of hundreds of spectators, most of whom had come to play the qualifying event of the under-14 and 16 sections.

The 17-year-old BAT trainee, Somdev played the groundstrokes with a lot of assurance and approached the net with considerable success. More than anything, Somdev was quite patient to work his way to the points, even as Kamala Kannan tended to err in his anxiety to overpower the young rival. It was another case of missed opportunity for Kamala Kannan, who had given himself a good opening by getting past the top-seeded Sunil Kumar in the earlier round.

The match between the fourth-seeded Mustafa Ghouse and the seventh-seeded Ajay Ramaswamy was well controlled by the former, who not only served big consistently but also returned quite sharp to win the vital breaks.

The power in the groundstrokes of Ajay was much to the liking of Mustafa who stroked with relish as the match meandered to a one-sided finish.

Mustafa will be tested by the crafty play of the second-seeded Nitin Kirtane, who taught a few lessons on left-hand play to another left-hander, Kedar Tembe.

In the junior section, defending champion R. Arun Prakash played an exquisite serve and volley game to overwhelm the third-seeded Tushar Liberhan, whom he had beaten in the semifinal last year.

There was a touch of artistry about anything that Arun Prakash did, and the trainee of Krishnan Centre in Chennai, will have the right challenge from Parantap Chaturvedi, who had put out the top-seeded Somdev Dev Varman on the way.

Parantap had to negotiate the youthful exuberance of the seventh-seeded Rupesh Roy, and did so in three sets.

Amanjot Singh was ruthless against Wrik Ganguly while the second-seeded Chatwinder Singh humbled the fighting Divij Sharan rather comprehensively at love in the third set.

Education is a never-ending exercise. Some of the losers would have added a few more lessons to their voluminous books.

The results:

Men singles (quarterfinals): Somdev Dev Varman bt Kamala Kannan 6-3, 3-6, 6-3; Vinod Sridhar bt Vijay Kannan 6-4, 6-1; Mustafa Ghouse bt Ajay Ramaswamy 6-3, 6-3; Nitin Kirtane bt Kedar Tembe 6-4, 6-1.

Doubles (semifinals): Nitin Kirtane and Saurav Panja bt Sandeep Kirtane and Vijay Kannan 6-2, 5-7, 7-5; Rohan Gajjar and Ajay Ramaswamy bt Kamala Kannan and Manoj Mahadevan 6-3 (conceded).

Women singles (quarterfinals): Shruti Dhawan bt Sheethal Goutham 5-7, 6-4, 6-2; Sonal Phadke bt Liza Pereira 6-3, 6-3; Ankita Bhambri bt Geeta Manohar 6-3, 6-0; Isha Lakhani bt Radhika Tulpule 6-3, 6-7 (3-7), 6-1.

Doubles (semifinals): Ankita Bhambri and Radhika Tulpule bt Lata Assudani and Preeti Rao 7-5, 6-0; Isha Lakhani and Sonal Phadke bt Shruti Dhawan and Sheethal Goutham 6-3, 6-2.

Junior boys singles (quarterfinals): Parantap Chaturvedi bt Rupesh Roy 4-6, 6-2, 6-2; R. Arun Prakash bt Tushar Liberhan 6-2, 6-2; Amanjot Singh bt Wrik Ganguly 6-1, 6-3; Chatwinder Singh bt Divij Sharan 6-4, 1-6, 6-0.

Doubles (semifinals): Divij Sharan and Tushar Liberhan bt Saurabh Kohli and Somdev Dev Varman 3-6, 6-3, 6-2; Amanjot Singh and Saurabh Singh bt V. M. Ranjith and Chatvinder Singh 6-2, 6-7 (5-7), 6-0.

Junior girls (quarterfinals): Isha Lakhani bt Iciri Rai 6-0, 6-2; Lata Assudani bt Priyanka Parekh 6-1, 6-0; Sasha Abraham bt Kamini Murugaboopathy 7-5, 6-0; S. Poonam Reddy bt Madura Ranganathan 6-1, 6-4.

Mixed doubles (semifinals): Shruti Dhawan and Ajay Ramaswamy bt Sonal Phadke and Sunil Kumar 6-3, 4-6, 6-2; Radhika Tulpule and Sandeep Kirtane bt Sheethal Goutham and Nitin Kirtane 6-3, 6-2;

Quarterfinals: Shruti Dhawan and Ajay Ramaswamy bt Iciri Rai and C.D. Ajay 7-6 (8-6), 7-6 (7-5); Sonal Phadke and Sunil Kumar bt Geeta Manohar and Anjan Viplav 7-5, 3-6, 6-4; Radhika Tulpule and Sandeep Kirtane bt Liza Pereira and Rohan Gajjar 6-1, 7-5; Sheethal Goutham and Nitin Kirtane bt Preeti Rao and R. Arun Prakash 6-3, 6-2.