Gakhov beat Saket to enter semifinals

Fifth seed Ivan Gakhov of Russia once again demonstrated fluent serving and stroke-play to get past top seeded Indian Saket Myneni in straight sets in the quarterfinals of the MCC-SR Subramaniam Memorial ITF Men's Futures tennis tournament here today.
Ivan Gakhov, who beat Saket 6-3, 7-6 (1), will now take on N Sriram Balaji in the semifinal tomorrow. The other semifinal would be between V M Ranjeet and Vijay Sundar Prashanth.
Saket had played only two clay court tournaments in the last 10 years since he won the junior U-18 National Claycourt title at the same venue.
In the two doubles semi-finals, top seeds Sriram Balaji and V M Ranjeeth comfortably beat Akash Wagh and Anvit Bendre in two easy sets while the popular Sood brothers -- Chandril and Lakshit -- defeated fourth seeds Nikky Poonacha and P C Vignesh in straight sets.

Results: Main Draw Singles:
Virali-Murugesan Ranjeet bt Antoine-Michel Alexeev (Sui) 6-3, 3-6, 6-3; Vijay Sundar Prashanth bt M Descotte (Arg) 6-1, 6-0; N Sriram Balaji bt Yannick Thivant (Fra) 4-6, 6-4, 2-1 Ret; Ivan Gakhov (Rus) bt Saketh Myneni 6-3, 7-6(1)
Main Draw Doubles: Chandril Sood/Lakshit Sood bt Niki Kaliyanda Poonacha/Vignesh Peranamallur 6-4, 6-3; N Sriram Balaji/Virali-Murugesan Ranjeet bt Anvit Bendre/Akash Wagh 6-2, 6-4.