Three Indians, including top seed Rohan Bopanna, stormed into the singles semifinals of the $ 10,000 India F5 Futures ITF Men's Circuit being played at the CLTA Stadium in Chandigarh on Thursday.
After Thursday's matches, the singles semifinal line-up is Rohan Bopanna vs Divij Sharan and Harsh Mankad vs third seed Hyun-Woo Nam of Korea.
Top seeded pair of Vivek Shokeen and Ashutosh Singh suffered an unexpected reverse as third seeded duo of Rohan Gajjar and Purav Raja registered a well-deserved 6-4, 6-7 (5), 10-4 win in the doubles semifinal.
They will now face Harsh Mankad and Rupesh Roy who ended the challenge of Yuki Bhambri and Kamala Kannan 6-3, 6-1 in another doubles semifinal.
Serving at a speed of 125 miles per hour, Bopanna just managed to pip unseeded Danila Arsenov in three hotly-contested sets 6-7 (8), 7-6 (1), 6-3 in a quarterfinal match.
Trailing 4-5 in the second set, Bopanna saved a match point in the 10th game before bouncing back into the game with a vengeance and went on to clinch the tie to move into the semi-final.
On his serve in the 10th game of the second set, Bopanna returned a backhand into the net to trail 30-40, with Arsenov having gained a break point for the game, set and match.
For the next point, the Russian went for the kill by rushing to the net but fumbled giving a sigh of relief to Bopanna and his supporters.
Bopanna unleashed a powerful serve after gaining advantage to make it 5-all.
The issue then went to the tie-breaker which Bopanna completely dominated with his serve-and-volley game.
The Indian Davis Cupper, who is preparing for the upcoming match against Japan, won the tie-break 7-1.
In the deciding set, Bopanna won the first three games with a break in the second. Arsenov won the fourth, fifth and sixth games, after breaking Bopanna in the fifth game to make it 3-all.
Bopanna then asserted his authority and claimed the seventh, eighth and ninth games in a row to seal the issue. Bopanna fired 19 aces and committed three double faults while Arsenov recorded seven aces. The marathon match lasted 179 minutes.
Bopanna will now face his colleague, left handed Divij Sharan in the semifinal on Friday.
At the adjacent court, Divij Sharan snuffed out the challenge of Roman Jebavy of Czech Republic in straight sets 7-5, 6-2 in a one hour and 24 minutes tie.
From the lower half of the draw of 32, wild card Harsh Mankad stopped the winning run of 16-year-old Australian Junior Open semifinalist Yuki Bhambri 6-4, 6-3 in one hour and 51 minutes.
Mankad's opponent in the semifinal will be third seed Korean Hyun-Woo Nam who denied a clean Indian sweep in the quarter-finals as he ousted Vivek Shokeen in straight sets 6-4, 6-2 in one hour and 23 minutes.
