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TeThe 25-year-old Saketh Myneni bagged his second consecutive ITF Futures singles crown – the sixth of his career when he eased past Ranjeet Virali-Murugesan 6-1, 6-2 in a one-sided final clash of the 15,000 USD ITF Futures at the hard courts of the Rajiv Gandhi Sports Complex in Rohtak in Haryana.
Playing on a windy day, the third seeded Saketh served solidly, churning out a high first serve percentage and kept approaching the net on a regular basis to keep the points short.
Ranjeev found it hard to break Saketh’s serve as the latter rarely had to fall back on his second serve – such was his first serve.
Saketh, who jumped more than fifty spots in the latest ATP rankings to be placed 341st, broke Ranjeev’s serve in the fourth game even as the latter committed three forehand errors.
Saketh again broke Ranjeet’s serve in the sixth game to make it 5-1 before closing it the opening set at 6-1, but not before saving two break points.
Ranjeet began the second set on a confident note, serving at love – firing his first ace of the match and even had reduced Saketh to 0-30 on his serve in the second game. But Saketh came out of the crisis to hold serve and later broke Ranjeet’s serve in the third game to march ahead.
The Vizag lad forced another break of serve as he pocketed the second set 6-2 to lay his hands on the winner’s trophy.
Earlier, in the semifinals, Saketh brushed aside second seeded Jeevan Nedunchezhiyan 6-2, 6-2 to make it to the final.
Ranjeev got the better of fifth seeded Vijayant Malik 6-0, 4-6, 6-1 in the other semifinal.
Saketh had won the Chandigarh ITF Futures title beating Vijayant Malik in the final.
The Rohtak ITF Futures saw the top-seed N Sriram Balaji caving in meekly 2-6, 4-6 to Vijayant Malik in the quarterfinals.
Vijayant has been acquiring a giant-killing image in recent times – he toppled the top seed Yuki Bhambri in the quarterfinals of the Chandigarh ITF Futures before finishing runners-up.
It may be worth recalling things have looking bright for the Indian women in the ITF Futures circuit.
Ankita Raina had finished runners-up in the recent $10,000 ITF Lucknow Futures tennis tournament in Lucknow, losing to Japan’s Emi Mutaguchi.
The Lucknow event was Ankita’s fourth consecutive ITF Futures final.
The national grasscourt champion had clinched the Chennai Futures a week before the Lucknow tourney.
The Gujarat girl, who is now based in Pune, had also finished runners-up in the two ITF Futures tourneys in Hyderabad last March. Her impressive run saw her jump in the WTA rankings to be placed 461.
