Sushant, Sudipta clinch singles titles

Mumbai: Third-seed Sushant Dabas outclassed no 4 seed Divesh Gahlot in straight sets in an all-Haryana clash to lift the boys’ singles title in the MSLTA-Yonex Sunrise 12th Ramesh Desai Memorial CCI All India Under 16 Tennis Nationals here today.

Playing an attacking brand of tennis Sushant, from Gurgaon who is ranked sixth in the country, dominated from the start and hardly gave his Sonepat rival, ranked one place below, any chance to settle down and raced to a 6-1 6-3 win in 70 minutes at the Cricket Club of India courts.

The girls’ singles crown was clinched by Maharashtra’s Sudipta Senthil Kumar who got the better of Sandeepti Rao of Haryana 7-5 7-6 (3) in the final.

The champions earned 200 AITA ranking points while the runners-up secured 150 points.

In the boys’ final, Dabas broke his rival’s serve four times while dropping his serve early once to pocket the first set.

Gahlot changed tactics and put up some fight later but was unable to stop Sushant from running away with the second set and the match.

Dabas broke Gahlot in the second and fourth games to open up a 3-1 lead. He then saved five break-points before holding serve to take a handy 4-1 lead and then went on to clinch the set and the match for the title.

Sudipta was 2-5 down against Haryana girl Sandeepti in the opening set of the girls’ final before reeling off five games in a row to clinch it.

In the second, the Maharashtra girl led 5-3 before her opponent caught up at 6-all, leading to the tie-break that Sudipta clinched comfortably to win the crown.

Results: Boys’ singles (Final): 3-Sushant Dabas (HR) bt 4-Divesh Gahlot (HR) 6-1 6-3.

Girls’ singles (Final): Sudipta Senthil Kumar (MH) bt Sandeepti Rao (HR) 7-5 7-6 (3).