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Top seeds Laxmi Dandu and Dheeraj KS reached the finals of the qualifiers of the 29th Fenesta Open National Tennis Championship in their respective categories at the DLTA Complex in New Delhi on Sunday.
Telangana's Laxmi began the second-round match of the women's singles category on top after getting a bye in the first round. She quickly took the lead in the first set with her sublime baseline play and then registered a 6-2, 6-0 victory in straight sets against Mahi Trivedi of Gujarat. She will now face Tamil Nadu's Vitula Velumani for a place in the main draw. Dheeraj of Tamil Nadu continued his winning run in the tournament and moved into the finals of the qualifiers after beating Maharashtra's Pranav Korade in a three-set thriller by 6-3, 3-6, [10-8]. The top seed began the match on a positive note and quickly took a two-game lead before winning the first set. However, Pranav made a marvellous comeback in the second set and won it by 6-3 to force the contest into the third set, which went into a tiebreaker. The Tamil Nadu player kept his cool and clinched the victory by 10-8 to move into the finals, where he will face Yash Yadav of Madhya Pradesh. The tournament has seen the participation of some of India's top tennis stars in past editions, including Rohan Bopanna, Somdev Devvarman, Yuki Bhambri, Sania Mirza, and Rutuja Bhosale, among many others. In the boys u-18 category, top seed Ojas Mehlawat of Delhi defeated Parag Jain 6-0, 6-0 in straight sets to move into the finals where he will take on Vaibhav Kr Charotia of Uttar Pradesh. Haryana's Dhatri Dave qualified for the main draw of the girls u-18 category after beating Maharastra's Shreya Pathare 6-4, 6-3 in straight sets. Second seed Pal Upadhyay of Gujarat also qualified for the main draw of the event with a thrilling 6-3, 5-7, [10-4] win against Haryana's Snigdha Ruhil. The finals will be played later today, while the main draw will take place from September 30 to October 5. The Boys and Girls Under-16 & Under-14 category qualifying and main draw matches will be played from October 5 to October 12. Besides the prestigious titles, the winners will be awarded with prize money with a total prize pool of over Rs 21.55 Lakh and Kit Allowance in the junior categories up for grabs. The winners and runners-up in the U16 and U14 singles events will also receive a Tennis scholarship of Rs25,000 each. (ANI)
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