Mumbai ITF tennis: Tambe upsets third seed Arora in first round of seniors' event

Mumbai, March 12 (IANS) Mumbai's Amit Tambe scored an upset victory over third seed Manav Arora in the 45+ men's singles to provide an explosive start to the Jayant Roy Memorial $400 Mumbai ITF Tennis Tournament for seniors, which began here on Saturday.

After winning the closely-contested first set, which saw both players trade a break each to level scores at 5-5, Tambe broke Arora'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 quote comfortable at 6-3 despite 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 the 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 Single 45: 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) 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) 6-1-6, 6-2; Yati Gujarathi (IND) bt Jitendra Shinde (IND) 6-1, 6-1.

Men's single 70: Ratnakarrao Anne (IND) bt 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.