Sasi Kumar Mukund dug deep into his reserves, in a match that saw momentum swing wildly, to beat Britain’s Brydan Klein and entered his maiden ATP Challenger semifinals at the Chennai Open here on Friday.
In the first set, Sasi Kumar was the better player on the court as he broke the Briton twice, first in the third game with two deep returns inducing errors from Klein who couldn’t clear it past the net. The Indian broke him again in the fifth game and closed out the set quite easily at 6-2.
Long game
With momentum on his side, Sasi Kumar prevailed in the first game of the second set that went for close to 10 minutes and broke Klein with a smash winner and went up 2-0 ahead.
The Briton then stepped up his game and broke back to level it at 2-2. Klein was aggressive in coming to the net with some impressive slices and volleys and sent two powerful forehands in the eighth game to go ahead 5-3 before serving out to level the match at 1-1.
In the third set, both players served big and held easily for most parts though Sasi Kumar had a chance to break Klein after taking a 0-30 lead before three unforced forehand errors undid him.
The Indian then faced a breakpoint in the 11th game but produced a courageous down-the-line winner to make it deuce and held.
In the tie-break, Sasi Kumar did not hold back and raced to a 3-0 lead before winning it 7-3 with two backhand winners and an ace.
The other Indian, Prajnesh had yet another convincing 6-4, 6-3 win over James Duckworth of Australia. The Indian No. 1 was never really threatened by Duckworth.
The results:
Singles (quarterfinals): Prajnesh Gunneswaran bt James Duckworth (Aus) 6-4, 6-3; Andrew Harris (Aus) vs Alejandro Davidovich Fokina (Esp) 1-6, 7-6(6), 6-2; Sasi Kumar Mukund bt Brydan Klein (Gbr) 6-2, 3-6, 7-6(3); Corentin Moutet (Fra) bt Nicola Kuhn (Esp) 5-7, 6-3, 6-4.
Doubles (semifinals): Matt Reid & Luke Saville (Aus) bt Andre Goransson (Swe) & Harri Heliovaara (Fin) 6-4, 6-3; Gianluco Mager & Andrea Pellegrino (Ita) bt Tomislav Draganja (Cro) & Tsung-Hua Yang (Tpe) 6-0, 6-4.