Unseeded Paladugu Saiteja of Andhra Pradesh shocked boys under-14 second seed Vaidik Munshaw of Gujarat 7-6 (7-4), 1-6, 6-2, in the Xtra Premium National Series Tennis Championship, co-sponsored by Dewan Housing, in Mumbai, on Wednesday.
On the third consecutive day of upsets, Saiteja forced the opening set into the tie-breaker and took the lead to put his fancied opponent under early pressure. But Munshaw came back into the match by winning a comfortable second set to keep his hopes alive.
Surprisingly, Munshaw's challenge faded in the decider as Saiteja hit crucial winners and capitalised on unforced errors to take the set and match for a place in the quarter-finals.
The upset of Munshaw follows the shock ouster of boys' under-14 top seed Samip Mehta of Gujarat on the opening day and boys' under-16 No. 1 Parul Verma of Chandigarh on Tuesday.
In yet another upset on a day of close encounters, unseeded Siddharth Rawat of UP shocked No. 6 S Siddharth of Tamil Nadu 7-6 (7-2), 6-4 in a pre-quarter-final tie.
Boys' under-16 third seed Shiva Sangwan of Chandigarh also crashed to Delhi's Uday Karun Singh who won 6-3, 6-0 in a pre-quarter-final tie.
In contrast, girls' under-14 top seed Garima Vatwani and No. 3 Gopika Kapoor, both of Delhi, enjoyed easy second round encounters.
Results:
Boys U-16 (Pre-quarter-finals): Uday Karun Singh (Del) bt 3-Shiva Sangwan (Chand) 6-3, 6-0; Gaurav Walia (Mah) bt Kaza Vinayak Sharma 6-3, 1-6, 6-4; Sameer Patwardhan (Mah) bt Kaushik Reddy (AP) 6-4, 6-2.
Boys U-14 (Pre-quarter-finals): Ryoto Tachi (Mah) bt Kunal Anand (Del) 7-5, 6-3; 7-Shahbaz Khan (Mah) bt Hans Parthasarthi (Ori) 3-6, 6-2, 6-4; 3-Mohit Mayur (TN) bt Rakshay Thakkar (Mah) 6-2, 6-3; Siddharth Rawat (UP) bt 6-S. Siddharth (TN) 7-6 (2), 6-4; 9-Tushal Thawani (Mah) bt Nishant Dikkala 6-3, 6-4; 4-S V Abhishek (AP) bt Vishwesh Sinha (Mah) 7-6 (5), 6-4; 8-Chetan Pandit (AP) bt R. Ramkumar (TN) 7-5, 6-1; Paladugu Saiteja (AP) bt 2-Vaidik Munshaw (Guj) 7-6 (4), 1-6, 6-2.
Girls U-14 (2nd round): 1-Garima Vatwani (Del) bt Dhriti Manek (Mah) 6-4, 6-4; Jenai Billimoria (Mah) bt Neha Purohit (AP) 7-5, 7-5; Nupur Kaul (Mah) bt Shruti Archita (Mah) 6-2, 6-0; Bhavana Suresh (AP) bt 6-Yamini Reddy (Kar) 6-2, 6-3; 3-Gopika Kapoor (Del) bt Baljinder Kaur (Har) 6-1, 6-1; Madhuri Patere (Mah) bt Rachita Saarda (Kar) 6-0, 6-1; Sharmada Balu (Kar) bt Natasha Palha (Goa) bt 6-2, 3-6, 6-0; 7-Ankita Raina (Guj) bt Anuja Makan (Mah) 6-0, 6-3.
