Nitten Kirrtane took a sweet revenge beating Vinod Sridhar of Tamil Nadu 7-5 7-5 to enter the men's singles semi-finals of the DS Max AITA prize-money tennis tournament at the KSLTA stadium, here today.
The Maharashtra veteran had lost to Sridhar in the last year's final and the victory, which came after a two-hour tussle, was highly satisfying for Kirrtane.
"It feels too good to beat Sridhar, but by no means, it was easy," said Kirrtane, who proved that he is still a player to reckon with despite being in his late 30s.
Kirrtane raced to a 4-1 lead in the first set, before Sridhar pulled back to level at 4-all and forged ahead 5-4 with two set points in hand.
Kirrtane clawed his way back to level at 5-all and held on to win the set with a decisive break.
In the second set, it was Sridhar who had the advantage and took a 2-0 lead, before the wily Kirrtane struck back to level the score, which were tied till 5 all, before Kirrtne came up with two good games to wrap it up at 7-5.
Kirrtane will take on the fourth seed Chandril Sood of UP, who beat his brother and fifth seed seed Lakshit Sood 6-4 7-5.
In the other semi-final, the second seed Mohit Mayur of Tamil Nadu will meet qualifier Rishabdev Raman. Mayur stopped the qualifier Rishab Agarwal 6-3 6-2 while Rishabdev Raman prevailed over Vijay Kannan, who retired with a cramp after dropping the first set at 5-7.
The Karnataka challenge in the men's singles came to an end earlier in the second round with both B R Nikshep and Suraj R Prabodh making their exits. Chandril Sood accounted for wild card Nikshep 6-3 6-0 and Suraj conceded the second set after dropping the first at 0-6.
Adnya Naik of Maharashtra stayed on course for the semi-final spot in the women's singles with a 6-4 6-1 win over Pragati Nataraj of Tamil Nadu and so did the second seed Sai Samhita of Andhra Pradesh, who beat Amrita Mukherjee 6-3 6-4.
Qualifier Riya Bhatia defeated wild card Asha Nandakumar of Karnataka 6-3 6-3 while Smriti Joon of Haryana took the final spot in the last four round beating Nithyaraj Baburaj 5-7 6-2 6-1.
