Up and coming youngsters threw the form book out of the window in the women's section, in the 12th DSCL Open National Tennis Championships, in Delhi on Wednesday.
Hyderabad teenagers V Afreen Jahan and S Punam Reddy knocked out top seed Liza Pereira and second seed Sai Jayalakshmi respectively to advance to the quarter-finals of the Rs 1.1 million tournament, which saw nine seeds bow out today.
Qualifier Jahan rallied from a set down to send Pereira packing 6-7(3/7), 6-3, 6-2, while Reddy showed the door to Jayalakshmi, winning 7-5, 7-5.
Local girl and top junior Sanaa Bhambri then scalped third seed Archana Venkataraman and ensured that the lower half of the draw was thrown wide open. Bhambri won 7-5, 6-3.
The story was different in the men's section as the top three came out unscathed. However, fourth seed Ajay Ramaswami got a taste of youth power as he was outplayed by qualifier Sanam K Singh of Chandigarh, who won 2-6, 7-6(7/4), 6-4.
Sanam, who made the Maharashtra player wait for him to recover after his pre-quarter-final match in the under-18 category, came back strongly after losing the first set to register a remarkable victory.
Vinod Sridhar of Tamil Nadu was at his best as he blanked state mate R Narendran 6-0, 6-0, while second seed Punna Vishal of Andhra Pradesh withstood a late charge from Vijayendra Laad of Maharashtra to win 6-3, 7-6(7/3).
But their was no luck for eighth seed Parantap Chaturvedi as Gurmehar Singh overcame him 2-6, 6-2, 6-3.
Gurmehar, who had beaten former National grasscourt champion Vasudeva Reddy in the opening round, displayed superb court craft to prevail over his higher ranked opponent.
One of the best matches of the day was the men's pre-quarter-final between wild card Divij Sharan of Delhi and Tushar Liberhaan of Chandigarh. After a tough three set battle Sharan won 6-4, 4-6, 6-2.
The left-handed Sharan set up a quarter-final clash with Maharashtra's third-seeded Kedar Tembe, who defeated Saurav Panja 6-1, 6-4.
Meanwhile, boys' top seed Rupesh Roy crashed out, losing to Dubai-based Navdeep Singh 0-6, 7-5, 4-6.
Eleventh seed Vivek Shokeen and 14th seed Aditya Madkekar were the other seeds to bow out of the championship.
In the girls' singles, local girl Parul Goswami proved that her win over fifth seed Sheetal Goutam yesterday was no fluke when she packed off eighth-seed Meghna Paritala in straight sets, 6-2, 6-4.
Results:
Men's singles (pre-quarter-finals): Vinod Sridhar beat R Narendran 6-0, 6-0; Somdev Verman beat Gursharan Singh 6-3, 6-1; Kedar Tembe beat Saurav Panja 6-1, 6-4; Divij Sharan beat Tushar Liberhaan 6-4, 4-6, 6-2; Kamala Kannan beat Amod Wakalkar 6-4, 6-3; Sanam K Singh beat Ajay Ramaswami 2-6, 7-6(7/4), 6-4; Gurmehar Singh beat Parantap Chaturvedi 2-6, 6-2, 6-3; Vishal Punna beat Vijayendra Laad 6-3, 7-6 (7/3).
Women's singles (pre-quarter-finals): Afreen Jahan beat Liza Pereira 6-7(3/7), 6-3, 6-2; Shruti Dhawan beat Ragini Vimal 6-1, 6-2; Ankita Bhambri beat Preeti Subramanium 6-0, 6-1; Parul Goswami beat Anupama Rajur 6-4, 6-2; Lata Assudani beat Kartiki Bhatt 6-2, 6-0; Sanaa Bhambri beat Archana Venkatraman 7-5, 6-3; Samrita Sekar beat Geeta Manohar 7-5, 6-1; S Punam Reddy beat Sai Jayalakshmi 7-5, 7-5.
Boys' under-18 singles (pre-quarter-finals): Navdeep Singh beat Rupesh Roy 6-0, 5-7, 6-4; J Vishnuvardhan beat Vivek Shokeen 4-6, 6-2, 6-2; Saurabh Kohli beat Aditya Madkekar 6-7(5/7), 6-1, 6-3; Siddharth Gulati beat Syed Rahil 2-6, 6-4, 7-6 (7/4); Sanam K Singh beat Kaushik Raju 7-6 (7/5), 6-7(8/10), 6-3; Jeevan Nedunchezhiyan beat Tejasvi Rao 6-4, 6-1; Sumit Prakash Gupta beat Anshuman Dutta 6-0, 6-4; Divij Sharan beat Jitin Bishnoi 6-1, 6-2.
Girls' under-18 singles (pre-quarter-finals): Sanaa Bhambri beat Swetha Kakhandki 6-1, 6-1; Kartiki Bhatt beat Krushmi Chheda 6-4, 6-0; S Punam Reddy beat Prerna Myrthy 6-1, 6-0; Vandana Murali beat Vishaka Sheoran 6-1, 7-6 (7/5); Parul Goswami beat Meghna Paritala 6-2, 6-4; Sandri Gangotri beat Parija Maloo 7-5, 6-3; Preeti Subramanium beat Varsha Shivshankar 6-0, 7-5; Madura Ranganathan beat Sandhya Nagraj 6-0, 6-3.
