Kirrtane enters ITF Tennis Championship semis

Top seed in men's singles Nitten Kirrtane breezed past Swarandeep Singh Dhodi to enter the semifinals of the Calcutta South Club Senior ITF Tennis Championship at the red clay courts of the Calcutta South Club here on Wednesday.

Kirrtane took the opening set in 22 minutes by an easy 6-1, after which Dhodi, seeded 8 in the draw, seemed clueless against the former national champion. Kirrtane did not have to sweat much before pocketing the second set by a clean 6-2.

Kirrtane will face Narendra Choudhary in the semi final on Thursday.

Local wild card Siddharth Verma had the worst luck against third seed Dilip Mohanty as the former was up against Mohanty by 6-3,5-2 where he suffered a major hamstring pull at 15-15.

Though Verma showed utmost determination and refused to give up, but ultimately he was forced to concede at 6-3,5-7,0-1.

Wild card entrant Asish Sen proved to be too good for fourth seed Naresh Khatri as the former was up by 6-1, after which Khatri retired due to excessive sweating and exhaustion.

--IANS

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