Former Indian Davis Cupper Mustafa Ghouse and qualifier Englishman Richard Crabtree caused major upsets on the way to the men's singles quarter-finals in the $6250 prize-money MSLTA-ITF Satellite Tennis tournament (first leg) at the Dr Ranade Tennis Centre in Mumbai on Wednesday.
Ghouse, playing a solid baseline game, rallied magnificiently, after dropping the first set 6-7 (3-7) to pip third seed and compatriot Vijay Kannan 6-7 (3-7), 7-6 (7-5), 7-6 (7-5) in a marathon match which lasted three hours 15 minutes, while Crabtree needed a second set tie-break to send fourth seed Ajay Ramaswami of India packing at 3-6, 7-6 (8-6), 7-5 in two hours 40 minutes.
Unseeded Rohan Gajjar of India too had a good outing when he sent dangerous qualifier Takeshi Itoh of Japan crashing at 7-5, 6-2 in an hour and 42 minutes while top seed and youngest national champion Sunil Kumar Sipaeya of India needed a first set tie-break to beat qualifier and compatriot Parantap Chaturvedi 7-6 (8-6), 6-2.
Sixth seed Vinod Sridhar of India too made it to the last eight stage with a 6-4, 6-4 win over qualifier Saurav Panja of India.
The US-based Amritraj cousins met with mixed luck. Second seed Prakash Amritraj, son of Indian tennis ace Vijay, sidelined doubles speciallist Vishal Uppal of India 7-6 (7-3), 6-3 in an hour and 25 minutes while Anand Amritraj's son Stephen lost to Chaturvedi 6-2, 6-4 in the first round last night.
