Unseeded Harsh Mankad of India sailed into the semi-finals of the ITF men's Futures tournament, scoring a facile straight sets victory over Vitali Chevts of Belarus at the Oudh Gymkhana in Lucknow on Thursday.
Mankad, the lone Indian challenge left in the singles fray, displayed an attacking brand of tennis to carve out a 6-1, 6-3 victory.
The Indian dominated the proceedings from the beginning and capitalised on a number of unforced errors by his opponent, making his task of securing a berth in the last four stage easier.
Mankad, who had defeated Henr Susilo Promono of Indonesia 6-1, 6-2 in the pre-quarter-finals, displayed the same form.
He will now meet fifth seed Todor Enev of Bulgaria in the semi-finals tomorrow.
The Indian challenge in doubles, however, ended when the top seeded pair of Mustafa Ghouse and Vijay Kannan went down fighting to Pronomo and widhiyanto 6-7(6), 7-6(6), 6-7(6).
In the other singles matches, number two seed Orest Tereshchuk of Ukraine beat Naim Lalji of England in straight sets 6-3, 6-3 to secure a berth in the semi-finals. He will now play Satoshi Ivabuchi of Japan, who defeated Tomislav Peric of Croatia 7-6(2) 6-4.
In another quarter-final match, Todor Inov of Belarus got past Dong Hyun Kim of South Korea, winning 6-2, 6-4.
