Mrityunjay Badola to take on B.R. Nikshep in national tennis semis

B.R. Nikshep

New Delhi, Oct 16 (IANS) Mrityunjay Badola came up with another impressive performance to knock out fourth seed Nitin Kumar Sinha and set up a semi-final clash with defending champion B.R. Nikshep at the Fenesta Open National Tennis Championships here Thursday. In the Under-16 boys' singles, unseeded Mrityunjay came back from a set down to beat West Bengal boy Nitin 3-6, 6-2, 7-5.

Top seed Nikshep drew curtains on Siddhant Banthia's campaign with a 6-2, 6-2 win. In the other semi-final clash, second seed Vashisht Vinod Cheruku will face Tamil Nadu's S. Manish.

Vashisht had an easy outing against sixth seed Parikshit Somani and made his way into the semi-final with a 6-2, 6-2 win while Manish got the better of Anurag Nenwani 6-2, 6-4.

In the girls' U-16 section, top seed Jennifer Luikham remained on course for a title clash with Zeel Desai after both the players registered comfortable victories in their respective quarter-final clashes. Haryana girl Jennifer beat Shivani Amineni 6-1, 6-3 and Zeel recorded a 6-1, 6-1 victory over Sathwika Sama.

In her semi-final clash, Jennifer will take on Ramya Natrajan, who also came up with a strong performance to defeat Sabhyata Nihalini 6-0, 6-3.

Zeel will face Shivani Ingle who prevailed over Akshara Iska 6-4, 2-6, 6-4.

In the boys' U-14 quarter-finals, Siddharth Banthia beat Sanket Tomar 6-3, 4-6, 6-3, while Saurav Kalkal defeated Himanshu Mor 6-3, 6-4. Digvijay Singh overwhelmed Megh Bhargav Patel 6-3, 6-3 and Nikit M. Reddy edged past Rohan K. Reddy 7-6(4), 6-3.