Mumbai’s Amit Tambe scored an upset victory over 3rd seed Manav Arora in the 45+ Men’s singles to provide an explosive start to the Jayant Roy Memorial Mumbai ITF Tennis Tournament, which began on Saturday, with matches being played at the MSLTA and Woodehouse Gymkhana.
After winning the closely contested first set, which saw both players trade a break each to level scores at 5-5, Tambe broke Manav’s serve for the crucial lead and then served out the set 7-5. The scorching heat and humidity saw the pace slow down a bit in the second set, which Tambe won quite comfortably at 6-3 in spite of the long rallies.
In another tough encounter, Nikhil Rao, also donning the hat of Tournament Director, won a keenly contested marathon encounter that lasted 2 hours and 30 minutes before prevailing over Kuldip Rawat, 6-4, 7-5.
The other results were on expected line with fancied players, led by Nitten Kirrtane winning easy encounters. Kirrtane, seeded second, accounted for Great Britain’s Jeff Bhatija 6-1, 6-0.
Results: Men’s Singles 45 (MSLTA)
Nitten Kirrtane (IND) bt Jeff Bhatija (GBR) 6-1, 6-0; Nikhil Rao (IND) bt Kuldeep Rawat (IND) 6-4,7-5; Gopal Soni (IND) bt Gagan Kant Sharma (IND) bt 6-2, 6-2; Sunil Lulla (IND) bt Jaikishan Lakhani (IND) 6-0, 6-2; Amit Tambe (IND) bt Manav Arora (IND) 7-5, 6-3; Vinayak Bet Giri (IND) bt Channabasavakumar Badigannavar (IND) 7-6, 6-3; Gaurav Jaitly (IND) bt Akhil Mathur (IND) 6-4, 7-5; Deepak Patil (IND) bt Ageet Kumar (IND) 6-2, 6-1; Ashish Dikey (IND) bt Sanjay Kalgaonkar (IND) VS 6-1-6, 6-2; Yati Gujarathi (IND) bt Jitendra Shinde (IND) 6-1, 6-1.
Men’s Singles 70 (Woodhouse Gymkhana)
Ratnakarrao Anne (IND) Sushil Gujarathi (IND) 6-4, 3-6,10-5; Dhaval Patel (IND) bt Ratnakar Joshi (IND) 6-0-, 6-1; Tahir Ali (IND) bt Shiv Mor (IND) 6-2, 6-1; Ali Rymbai Hydar (IND) bt Parvatesam Ginagam 6-1, 6-2; Laxman Ambulkar bt Darshan Maria (IND) 6-2, 6-1.
