Cerovic, Valtzer in title clash in Gulbarga Open

Gulbarga, Oct 26 (UNI) Ivan Cerovic of Croatia and Dekel Valtzer of Israel stormed into the final with contrasting wins in the 15,000 Dollar Gulbarga Open ITF Men's tennis tournament here today.

While the third seeded Cerovic crushed sixth seed Alexey Kedryuk of Kazakhstan 6-4, 6-3, Valtzer had to struggle before downing unseeded giant killer Philipp Oswald of Austria at 7-6(4), 2-6, 6-3.

Though Indians were ousted in the singles, Vijay Kannan partnering Alexey Kedryuk won the doubles title defeating Tushar Liberhan of India and Ivon Cerovic in the final 6-3, 3-6, 10-3.

Earlier, Alexey, who had shown the door to Bellary Open winner and second-seeded Rainer Eitznger in the quarters yesterday, began well matching the fancied Croat, but lost his way in the extended fifth game to lose his serve and eventually the first set.

The left handed Cerovic proved too strong in the second set as he cruised with ease to take the match, while Alexey was more busy in arguing with the chair umpire.

The other semifinal proved an entertaining one but Philipp had to blame himself for the loss as he lost the first set in a tie-break despite comfortably leading at 5-2. Too many unforced errors resulted in Dekel win the tie break at 7-4. Philipp, who had created the biggest upset ousting top seed Pavol Cervenak of Slovakia yesterday, bounced back in style to level the set scores with Dekel hitting the net repeatedly.

However the Israeli made amends in the decider as he stepped up his game to lead over his opponent throughout. The crucial service break in the fourth game gave Waltzer a 3-1 lead and he never looked back thereafter.

UNI