Cheruku upsets Nikshep in junior tennis nationals

Vasisht Vinod Cheruku authored the biggest upset in the boys singles when he beat top seed Nikshep B.R. 6-2, 6-1, in an all-Karnataka semifinal of the MCC-Adidas Junior National clay court tennis championship, here Friday.

In the final scheduled for Saturday, Cheruku, seeded nine, will take on 15th ranked Nitin Kumar (West Bengal) who ended qualifier S. Manish's dream run by blanking the local challenger 6-0, 6-0.

The girls singles semi-finals too were quite straightforward with Abinikka R of Tamil Nadu and fourth seeded Zeel Desai from Gujarat advancing to the title round with straight set victories.

Abinikka, seeded nine, overcame Sathwika Sama of Andhra 6-2, 7-5, while Desai accounted for 16th seed Ramya Natarajan of Tamil Nadu 6-3, 6-1.

The results (semifinals):

Boys singles: 9-Vasisht Vinod Cheruku (Kar) bt 1-Nikshep BR (Kar) 6-2, 6-1; 15-Nitin Kumar Sinha (WB) bt Q-S Manish (TN) 6-0, 6-0.

Girls singles: 9-Abinikka R (TN) bt 15-Sathwika Sama (AP) 6-2, 7-5; 4-Zeel Desai (Guj) bt 16-Ramya Natarajan (TN) 6-3, 6-1.