PUNE, October 29, 2015
Giant killer N. Siundar Prashanth of India finally met his match, as he went down fighting to second seeded Evgeny Donskoy of Russia in the quarterfinals of the US-$50000 KPIT MSLTA ATP Challenger being organized by MSLTA and being played at the MSLTA School of Tennis Mhalunge Balewadi Tennis Complex.
In the quarterfinals the second seeded and world ranked 100 player Evgeny Donskoy had to get out his best to quell the challenge of 376th ranked N Vijay Sundar Prashanth 7-6(8),7-6 (5) in a 2 hour center court battle. Prashanth looked solid and seemed to carry over from his win over Somdev Devvarman yesterday hitting stroke for stroke. The 25 -year-old Donskoy who arrived after a semifinal match with Cilic at the Kremlin cup increased his power at the end of the match which forced the 29 year old Chennai player Prashanth into errors. Donskoy served 13 aces in the match which was decided by just a few points.
Donskoy will take on his country mate eighth seeded Alexander Kudryavtsev who upset third seeded Adrian Menendez-Maceiras of Spain 6-2, 6-1 in 1 hour and 6 minutes. The 198 ranked Kudryavtsev served and volleyed well to upset the 140 ranked Spaniard. Kudryatsev who played the top 100 last year served 9 aces to score a rather easy win.
In-form player and the winner of the event at Bengaluru James Ward of Great Britain ranked fourth stopped the winner of Ilya Ivashka of Belarus 6-3, 6-3 in just 58 minutes. Ward hammered 10 aces and broke once in every set to stop the 21 year old Ivashka. Ward will now take on the winner of top seed Yuki Bhambri who ousted Chinese Taipei Davis Cupper Chen Ti 6-4, 7-6(5).
Singles results:
[1] Yuki . Bhambri (IND) by Ti. Chen (TPE) 6-4, 7-6(5)
[4] James . Ward (GBR) vs Ilya. Ivashka (BLR) 6-3,6-3
[8] Alexander . Kudryavtsev (RUS) vs [3] Adrian . Menendez-Maceiras (ESP) 6-2,6-1
[2] Evegeny Donskoy (RUS) bt N. Sundar Prashanth (IND) 7-6(8),7-6(5)
Doubles Semifinals
[4] Gerard. Granollers (ESP) / Adrian. Menendez-Maceiras (ESP) bt [1] Alexander. Kudryavtsev (RUS) / Purav. Raja (IND) 6-3,4-6,12-10 .
[3] M. Neuchrist (AUT) / D. Sharan (IND) vs [2] S. Myneni (IND) / S. Singh (IND) 4-6,7-5,12-10
