Karunuday ends qualifier Prabodh's dream run

Qualifier Suraj Prabodh's dream run ended at the hands of compatriot Karunuday Singh, ranked 644 in the world, at the ongoing Central Excise ITF Futures tennis meet being held at the synthetic courts of the Bengal Tennis Association here on Thursday.

Karunuday Singh, unseeded in the draw, got an early break in the opening set and took a quick lead of 3-0, to which he held on and bagged the set by an ease 6-3.

In the second, Prabodh looked equally shaky at the beginning as he dropped the first game, giving Singh an added confidence though the former got strong enough to break back in the fourth game, levelling the set to two games a piece.

At the eighth game and on serve, Singh made some unforced errors to hand over the game to the qualifier, who eventually took the set by 6-3.

The decider saw a reflection of the opening set as Singh got an early break and looked comfortable with a 3-0 lead.

At 3-1, though Singh faltered on his serve and dropped the opportunity to make it 4-1 but was quick enough to break back in the very next game and led to score to 4-2. Singh won a long 1 hr and 58 mins match by 6-3,3-6,6-3.

He will face top seeded Carlos Boluda Purkiss of Spain in the semi final tomorrow, who in turn got the better of Taipei's Chien Hsun Lo by 6-4, 4-0(retired). Lo retired due to illness.

From the lower half of the draw, Davis Cupper Saketh Myneni breezed past second seed S.K. Mukund by a comfortable 6-3,6-3 to enter the semi finals.

The Arjuna Award winner will face 5th seeded Arjun Kadhe who drubbed L.Y. Nam Hoang of Vietnam by a close 7-6(3),6-4 which lasted for 1 hr and 21 mins.

--IANS

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