Nikshep in tennis semis, Simran ousted

While top seed Nikshep BP from Karnataka moved smoothly into the semi-finals of the boys singles, there was mayhem in the girls section with the top three seeds -- Delhi lasses Simran Kaur Seth and Vanshika Sawhney and Maharashtra's Devanshi Bhimjiyani -- bowing out in the MCC-Adidas Junior National Championships here Thursday.

Nikshep was given a tough fight by ninth seeded Manav N Pondkule (Maharashtra) before he prevailed 6-3, 7-6 (3) in a quarter-final tie.

Joining Nikshep in the boys semi-finals were Vasisht Vinod Cheruka of Karnataka, Nitin Kumar Sinha (West Bengal) and qualifier S Manish (Tamil Nadu).

In the girls singles, Seth went down to 15th seed Sathwika Sama of Andhra Pradesh in straight sets while Sawhney faded after taking the first set on tie-break against 16th seed Ramya Natarajan of Tamil Nadu. Bhimjiyani lost to another local girl Abhinikka R.

Completing the girls singles semi-final line-up was fourth seed from Gujarat Zeel Desai who put out Tamil Nadu's Rishika Ravi in three sets.

Simran was out of sorts from the beginning of the match and never quite recovered. It was to the credit of Sana that she kept playing her steady game throughout to win 6-4, 6-2 and reach the semi-finals.

In another upset. Abhinikka played to her potential, serving and stroking strongly, to put out Devanshi in straight sets while Zeel Desai kept her appointed place in the semi-finals as she fought off a strong challenge from the in-form Rishika Ravi.

In the fourth quarter-final Ramya put up an impressive performance to upset the second seeded Vanishka who needed a tie-breaker to subdue the determined local girl in the first set.

The effort of winning the tie-break seemed to have unnerved Vanishka and Ramya came back strongly to take the second and third sets with a fair degree of comfort and will meet Zeel Desai.

The results (all quarter-finals):

Boys singles: 1-Nikshep BR (Kar) bt 8-Manav N Pondkule (Mah) 6-3, 7-6 (3); 15-Nitin Kumar Sinha (WB) bt 4-Venkata Gnana Bhaskar (AP) 6-2, 6-3; 9-Vasisht Vinod Cheruka (Kar) bt13- Basil L Khuma (WB) 2-6, 6-1, 6-4; Q-S Manish (TN) bt Q-Raghav Jai Singhani (MP) 6-0, 7-5.

Girls singles: 15-Sathwika Sama (AP) bt 1-Simran Kaur Seth (Del) 6-4, 6-2; 9-Abinikka R (TN) bt 3-Devanshi Bhimjiyani (Mah) 6-3, 6-2; 4-Zeel Desai (Guj) bt Rishika Ravi (TN) 6-3, 4-6, 6-3; 16-Ramya Natarajan (TN) bt 2-Vanshika Sawhney (Del) 6-7 (5), 6-3, 6-2.