Tennis: Sood, Mayur in title round

Fourth seed Chandril Sood of Uttar Pradesh came back from the brink to subdue the top seed and last year's runer-up Nittin Kirrtane of Maharashtra 4-6, 6-1,7-6(2) and set up a title clash with the second seed Mohit Mayur of Tamil Nadu in the men's singles final of Rs.3.5 Lkah DS Max Top Spin AITA tennis tournament here Friday.

Mayur set a hot pace with his blistering forehands to pack off unseeded Rishabdev Raman 6-1, 6-1 in little under an hour in the other semi-final.

In a seesaw match which lasted almost three hours, Sood overcame his self-doubt and quite a few unforced errors to take Kirrtane's challenge in his stride.

Sood was brilliant with his returns, but often lapsed into unnecessary errors to put pressure on himself. However, he gathered his wits and staged a fine recovery to stop Kirrtane who is almost twice his age.

Kirrtane set the tempo in the first set and with a break in the ninth game took the set at 6-4, but Sood was at his best in the second set blasting winnes on both flanks to wrap up the set at 6-1.

In the decider, with Sood getting distracted by couple of adverse line calls, a pumped up Kirrtane cashed in on his rival's errors to break in the fourth and sixth games for a 5-2 lead.

Then came a determined fight back from Sood as he attacked with zest against a tiring Kirrtrane to level at 5-all and then pushed the set into a tie-break.

Kirrtane, who was slowing down, took a brief medical time out before the tie-break which Sood wrapped up in no time to emerge a worthy winner.

"I should have won it much easier, but for all those mistakes," said Sood who thus made his second AITA final of the season.

In the women's singles, Adnya Naik of Maharastra, who is on a roll in the tournament, stormed into the final with an easy 6-1, 6-1 victory over Smriti Joon of Haryana and she takes on the second seed Sai Samhita of Andhra who prevailed after qualifier Riya Bhatia conceded due to a sore shoulder after losing the first set 3-6.

The results (all semi-finals):

Men's singles: Chandril Sood bt Nittin Kirrtane 4-6, 6-1, 7-6 ( 2 ); Mohit Mayur bt Rishabdev Raman 6-1, 6-1.

Women's singles: Adnya Naik bt Smriti Joon 6-1, 6-1; Sai Samhita bt Riya Bhatia 6-3-(conceded).