Top seed Aditya Madkekar of Mumbai will clash with second seed Nitin Kirtane of Pune in the finals of the Hero-Honda Pune Open National Ranking Tennis championship to be held at the Police Tennis courts in Pune on Saturday.
In the semi-finals played on Friday, Aditya Madkekar stopped the giant-killer and wild card local challenger Ketan Dhumal 6-3, 6-2, while southpaw Nitin Kirtane put paid to the aspirations of fourth seed Amod Wakalkar 7-5, 7-5, in a close encounter lasting 90 minutes.
Former Davis Cupper, Kirtane, an employee of Western Railways, had lost to the 22-year-old Madkekar of Central Railways at the Inter Railway championships last year.
The Kirtane-Wakalkar clash was marked by excellent rallies from both players.
Both the players held on to their services up to the 10th game (5-5) before Kirtane broke Wakalkar's serve in the 11th game in both the sets to win the clash.
Local youngster Dhumal, who had accounted for two seeded players Nikuj Siwach (Goa) and Yogesh Phogat (Gujarat), before entering the semi-finals, went down tamely to Madkekar.
In the doubles event, local challengers Gautam Samarth and Siddarth Patil entered their first national final accounting for veteran Jayant Kadhe and Sangram Chapekhar 6-4, 6-2.
Results:
Men's singles semi-finals: Aditya Madkekar (Mah) bt Ketan Dhumal (Mah) 6-3, 6-2; Nitin Kirtane (Mah) bt Amod Wakalkar (Mah) 7-5, 7-5.
Men's doubles semi-finals: Gautam Samarth and Siddarth Patil bt Jayant Kadhe and Sangram Chapekhar 6-4,6-2.