Vasisht, Zeel claim junior tennis meet titles

Karnataka's Vasisht Cherukku of Karnataka and Zeel Desai of Gujarat annexed the boys and girls singles titles in the MCC-Adidas Junior National clay court tennis championships here Saturday.

Vasisht, who had won the doubles title Friday, overcame Nitin Kumar Sinha of West Bengal 6-2, 3-6, 6-1 and Zeel easily defeated local challenger Abinikka R 6-4, 6-2, in the title round.

In the boys final, both players displayed excellent ground strokes and mobility. Vasisht broke Nitin twice with strong returns and held serve to lead 4-1. Nitin then served to reduce the lead, but was no match for Vasisht who later wrapped up the set 6-2.

In the second set, Nitin broke Vasisht in the fifth game to take a decisive lead and then broke again in the ninth to win the set 6-3 and level scores.

The third set was a repeat of the first. Vasisht once again served crisply and returned positively to run up a 4-0 lead and go on to win the set 6-1 for the title.

In match of strong ground strokes Zeel Desai outplayed Abhinikka to lift the girls' title. In the first set, Zeel displayed strong forehands along with some excellent retrieving abilities to counter Abhinika's strong attacking ground strokes.

The first set saw as many as five service breaks, three by Zeel in the second, sixth and 10th games and two by Abhinikka in the fifth and seventh.

In the second set, Zeel took a 5-0 lead and never looked back as Abhinikka's forehand found the net on her first match point.

The results (finals):

Boys singles: 9-Vasisht Vinod Cherukku (Kar) bt 15-Nitin Kumar Sinha (WB) 6-2, 3-6, 6-1. Doubles: Cheruku / Prajwal Dev (Del) bt Nenwani Anurag (Del) / Venkata Gnana Bhaskar (AP) 6-2, 6-2.

Girls singles: 4-Zeel Desai (Guj) bt 9-Abinikka R (TN) 6-4, 6-2. Doubles: Vanshika Sawhney (Del) / Ramya Natarajan (TN) bt Nandini Sharma (Chd) / R Sai Avanthika (TN) 6-2, 6-2.