Sanam stuns Kedriouk, easy outing for other seeds

New Delhi, Dec 20 (UNI) Wild card Sanam Singh upstaged second seed Alexey Kedriouk of Kazakhstan to breeze into the quarterfinals even though it was smooth sailing for other seeds in the State Bank of Saurashtra Indian Open Tennis Championship here today.

Chandigarh-based sanam quelled a late challenge from the second seed to tame the Kazakh 6-4, 1-6, 7-5 to move into the quarterfinals.

After losing the first set, the Kazakh player came back strongly to win the second conceding just one game. But Sanam soon recovered from the setback and played intelligently to win the decider.

Meanwhile, it turned out to be an easy day in the office for the seeded players.

Top seed Rohan Bopanna thrashed compatriot Sunil Sipaeya 6-3, 6-4 to set up a quarterfinal clash with fifth seed Karan Rastogi who tamed Tushar Liberhan 6-3, 6-2 in another match.

Fourth seeded Pakistani Aisam Qureshi shrugged off his inertia to get the better of his French rival Franck Dalla-Santa 7-6(4), 6-4, while seventh seed Divij Sharan did not have to toil hard against Xavier Pujo of France whom he beat 6-2, 6-4.

In other matches, Hiroki Kondo beat Canadian Pierre-Ludovic Duclos 6-4, 6-2, Todor Enev of Bulgaria thrashed Hsin-Han Lee of Chinese Taipe 6-4, 6-0 and Korean Hyun-Woo Nam defeated Ashutosh Singh 6-1, 6-3.

UNI AY PDS DB1838