By Grand Slam

NEW DELHI, October 4 (www.dsclopentennis.com) - Tushar Liberhan (Chandiarh) and Karan Rastogi (Maharashtra), who will both turn 18 on Friday, made powerful statements for the teen brigade toppling third-seeded Kamala Kannan and No. 7 Ashutosh Singh on the opening day of the 13th DSCL Open National tennis championship at the DLTA Complex here today.

The experience that Liberhan and Rastogi picked up on the ITF circuit this year came in handy as the youngsters displayed grit and panache in ample measure to send the fancied players packing. Liberhan beat back a mid-match recovery by Kamala Kannan (Tamil Nadu) in 6-4, 3-6, 6-0 victory while Rastogi defeated Ashutosh Singh (Delhi) 6-1, 6-2.

Two other talented teenagers bowed out. Delhi's left-handed Divij Sharan, who swept through to the men's final as a 17-year-old wild card entry last year, could not sustain his rhythm from the first set and lost in three sets to fifth-seeded VM Ranjeet while Vivek Shokeen, 17, stretched No. 2 Vinod Sridhar in the opening set and lost in straight sets.

There was no such drama in first round play in the women's draw. Third-seeded Sonal Phadke No. 5 Lisa Pereira and seventh seed Sheetal Goutham moving to the second round. Phadke, runner-up to Isha Lakhani in 2002, had to overcome resistance by wild-card entrant Krushmi Chheda in a three-set win

Delhi's Parul Goswami defeated eight-seeded Ashmita Eashwaramurthy (Tamil Nadu) 6-3, 7-6 (2) in the only upset in girls' under-18 play.

The results (seeding prefixed to players) :
Men's singles (first round):  Tushar Liberhan (Chandigarh) beat 3 Kamala Kannan (Tamil Nadu) 6-4, 3-6, 6-0; Gursharan Singh (Punjab) beat Shryaash Sacheti (Madhya Pradesh) 4-6, 7-5, 6-1; Karan Rastogi (Maharashtra) beat 7 Ashutosh Singh (Delhi) 6-1, 6-2; 5 VM Ranjeet (Tamil Nadu) beat Divij Sharan (Delhi) 2-6, 6-1, 7-6 (2); Saurabh Singh (Chandigarh) beat Arjun Goutham (Karnataka) 7-6 (9), 1-6, 6-3; 2 Vinod Sridhar (Tamil Nadu) beat Vivek Shokeen (Delhi) 7-5, 6-3;

Women's singles (first round): Preeti Rao (Tamil Nadu) beat Rati Kumar (Maharashtra) 6-0, 6-4; 3 Sonal Phadke (Maharashtra) beat Krushmi Chheda (Mahrashtra) 7-6 (4), 1-6, 6-2; 5 Liza Pereira (Maharashtra) beat Chirashanthi Rajur (Karnataka) 6-0, 6-4; Karishma Patel (Gujarat) beat Deepak Chakraborthy (Bengal) 6-1, 6-4; Sandhya Nagraj (Tamil Nadu) beat Jilke Nelord (Delhi) 6-0, 6-1; 7 Sheetal Goutham (Karnataka) beat Ragini Vimal (Bengal) 6-3, 6-1;

Boys' under-18 singles (first round): Arnav Jain (Maharashtra) beat Vishnu Rajam (Tamil Nadu) 6-3, 6-3; Rahul Beliwal (Delhi) beat Farid Alam (Bengal) 1-6, 6-2, 6-2;  14 M Hariprasath (Tamil Nadu) beat Ankit Patel (Chattisgarh) 6-0, 6-2; 9 Ajay Selvaraj (Tamil Nadu) beat Akbar Kamil (Maharashtra) 6-3, 6-2;  PC Vignesh (Andhra Pradesh) beat Rohit Choudhary (Rajasthan) 6-1, 6-0;  Krishank Shah (Maharashtra) beat Rubal Shandilya (Delhi) 6-4, 6-4; 6 Sumit Prakash (Uttar Pradesh) beat Varun Nagrath (Delhi) 6-0, 6-0;  3 Anshuman Dutta (Assam) beat Gaurav Singh (Madhya Pradesh) 6-3, 6-1;  Honey Rana (Delhi) beat R Parivel (Tamil Nadu) 6-4, 7-6 (3);  A Daniel Raj (Andhra Pradesh) beat B Shaharsh Reddy (Andhra Pradesh) 6-2, 6-3;  15 Alon Moses (Maharashtra) beat Sriram Mangal (Tamil Nadu) 6-1, 6-4;  11 Krishna Karsolia (Uttar Pradesh) beat Ronak Mehta (Gujarat) 4-6, 6-1, 6-0;  7 Prateek Shantaraju (Karnataka) beat Samarath Gautham (Maharashtra) 6-2, 6-2;  8 Rohan Gide (Maharashtra) beat Arup Malik (Bengal) 6-3, 6-1;  GP Pranjesh (Tamil Nadu) beat AS Suresh Krishna (Andhra Pradesh) 7-6 (2) 2-6, 6-3;  Fariz Mohammed (Tamil Nadu) beat Arpit Sharma (Bengal) 6-4, 7-6 (4); 12 Navaneetha Kannan (Tamil Nadu) beat Sunil Kumar (Punjab) 6-2, 6-2;  16 Sidharth Gulati (Delhi) beat P Bharatha Srinivas (Tamil Nadu) 6-1, 6-0; Jacob Tariq (Tamil Nadu) beat Manjit Singh (Chandigarh) 6-4, 6-3; Allan Gomes (Gujarat) beat Manish Rao (Karnataka) 6-4, 6-3;  4 Nityesh Natraj (Tamil Nadu) beat Arun Ramu (Tamil Nadu) 7-5, 6-3;  5 Tejaswi Rao (Andhra Pradesh) beat Debeendra Das (Assam) 6-2, 6-1. P Vivek Reddy (Andhra Pradesh) beat Vijay Siwach (Goa) 6-1, 6-3; RK Praveen (Karnataka) beat Aman Puri (Delhi) 6-3, 6-1; 10 Peter Agnel Gladwin (Maharashtra) beat Navinder Pal Singh (Chandigarh) 6-3, 6-1; 13 Vijay Sundar Prashanth (Tamil Nadu) beat Udit Arora (Delhi) 6-0, 6-0;  Paras Thakur (Chandigarh) w.o. Mohammed Jubair (Andhra Pradesh); Siddarth Alapati (Andhra Pradesh) beat KH Praveen (Andhra Pradesh) 6-1, 6-1;

Girls' under-18 singles (first round): 1 Sana Bhambri (Delhi) beat Shewta Kumari Solanki (Delhi) 6-0, 6-2; Prerna Mythry (Andhra Pradesh) beat Niroshita Madanala (Andhra Pradesh) 7-5, 6-1; Poojashree Venkatesh (Karnataka) beat Amrita Seth (Delhi) 6-1, 6-1; 7 Sandri Gangotri (Andhra Pradesh) beat PV Rajeswari (Andhra Pradesh) 6-0, 6-1. 3 GK Shweta (Karnataka) beat Aarti Duraiswamy (Tamil Nadu) 7-6 (1), 0-6, 6-4; Sanjana Kapur (Delhi) beat Anushka Kapoor (Delhi) 6-2, 6-3; Asha Nandakumar (Karnataka) beat Shalini Sahoo (Delhi) 7-6 (3), 6-3; 5 Vandana Murali (Tamil Nadu) beat Oormila Ram (Andhra Pradesh) 6-3, 3-6, 6-2; Parul Goswami (Delhi) beat 8 Ashmita Eashwaramurthy (Tamil Nadu) 6-3, 7-6 (2); Vishaka Sheoran (Delhi) beat Kanisha Mehta (Maharashtra) 7-6 (7), 6-4; Parija Maloo (Maharashtra) beat Karina Ahuja (Delhi) 6-2, 6-4; 6 Preethi Subramanian (Tamil Nadu) beat Sagarika Phadke (Maharashtra) 7-5, 7-6 (0); Grace Hannah (Tamil Nadu) beat Neha Rana (Delhi) 6-1, 6-3; Amoolya Raghunath (Karnataka) beat Anushree Thammani (Karnataka) 6-2, 6-2. 2 Shivika Burman (Bengal) beat Surpiya Mallya (Maharashtra) 6-3, 6-4;