16-year-old Wagh goes down fighting to fourth seed Tursunov

Mumbai, Sep 27 (UNI) The Indian challenge in singles in the 3,80,000 dollars Kingfisher Airlines Open tennis tournament ended at the CCI courts here today when schoolboy Akash Wagh went down gallantly to number four seed Dimitry Tursunov of Russia in straight sets.

Tursunov the world number 23 needed just over an hour at 6-2, 7-5.

Playing his first match on the men's tour, the left-handed Wagh stretched world No 23 Tursunov before going down in the first round of the Kingfisher Airlines Open, at the Cricket Club of India in Mumbai today.

Tursunov, coming in from a marathon four-hour 48-minute battle against Andy Roddick in the Davis Cup semi-finals, did not look in best shape though he managed to outpace the Indian youngster. He made a lot of errors on his backhand and seemed surprised by some of the pacy serves by Wagh.

The 16-year-old lost his serve in the very first game and then again lost it in the fifth game to hand over the first set to the fourth seed in just 21 minutes.

Wagh however, never seemed overawed by the situation. He didn't care for his opponent's reputation and focused on the job at hand.

The youngster had a chance to break Tursunov in the first game of the second set but the Russian served two aces to level at deuce.

The players traded breaks in the next two games, with Wagh showing great power to stay in the rallies and induce errors from the Russian.

The set went on serve till 5-5 till a double-fault by Wagh gave Tursunov a break point. He grabbed the chance and served out the match easily, taking the second set 7-5.

''I went for my shots; I had nothing to lose,'' said Wagh, who last December shifted to Bangalore from Pune in order to train at the Mahesh Bhupathi Tennis Academy.

''I need to work on my fitness because I know I am hitting the ball well. I made errors on my forehand because I was not positioned well. But if I play him again I won't make as many mistakes.'' In a first round doubles match J Auckland and J Delgado of Britain defeated S Galvani and D Sanguinetti of Italy in a tough three setter at 6-3, 5-7, 10-8.

Delgado and Auckland ran away with the first set at 6-3. However, the Italian pair came back strongly to take the second set at 7-5.

The third set saw both the pairs not wanting to make the first mistake as the match went into a super tie-breaker which Auckland and Delgado won 10-8 to move into the second round.

UNI GS MJ DH RK2032