The Indian challenge in men's singles ended when Vishal Uppal went down fighting to giant killer Dmitry Mazur of Uzbekistan 1-6, 6-7(5) in the semi-finals of the ITF (second leg) tennis championship in Chennai on Friday.
It was a question of surviving the hot and humid conditions on the deco turf centre court and the Uzbek proved to be the fitter of the two,. He displayed the killer instinct in the second set tie-break to oust the Indian national champion.
In the final, he will take on Filip Urban of Poland, who had little difficulty in disposing of stocky Tai-Wei-Liu (China) 6-1 6-4 in the other semi-final.
Mazur, a qualifier who has been on the court every day since Sunday last, defeated Tushar Liberhan to progress to the main draw.
On his way to the final, he accounted for top seed Todor Enev (Bulgaria) in the first round.