Sourav Panja, Manoj Sewa in quarterfinals

Patna, December 2, 2009: Manoj Sewa and Saurav Panja continued their upward march in the Deshratna Dr Rajendra Prasad memorial all-India ranking tennis tournament at Patliputra Courts here on Wednesday.

In men’s singles pre-quarterfinals, Saurav Panja of West Bengal outplayed his statemate Robin Das 6-4, 6-3 and Manoj Sewa also from West Bengal struggled a bit to down Jatin Dahia (Delhi) 7-5, 6-4.

The best match of the day was between Devpriya Jaiswal and Rubal Shandilya, Rubal won the first set 6-3 but Devpriya came back very strongly to take the lead of 5-1 in the second set when the match was stopped due to bad light.

Results:

Men’s singles pre-quarterfinals: Anshuman Dutta /Asm/ beat Hari Chidambaram /IAF/ 6-7, 6-2, 7-6; Shantanu Rajput /Dli/ beat Pranshu Barthwal /UP/ 6-3, 6-2; Veer Vasant Venkatesh /Kar/ beat Aditya Tiwari /MP/ 4-6, 6-3, 6-3; Bharat Bhardwaj /Har/ beat Vishwanath Sawadi /Kar/ 5-2 retired hurt; Sagar Ahuja /Mah/ beat Dhruv Agarwal /UP/ 7-5, 6-0-1; Saurav Panja /WB/ beat Robin Das /WB/ 6-4, 6-3; Manoj Sewa /WB/ beat Jatin Dahia /Dli/ 7-5, 6-4.

Women’s singles quarterfinals: Dipti Srivastava /WB/ beat Deepshikha Gupta /Raj/ 6-1, 6-1; Gaini Sharni /AP/ beat Fatema Packer /Bih/ 6-1, 6-0; Rani Smita Jain /IAF/ beat Manuella Gomes /Dli/ 6-1, 6-1.

Men’s doubles quarterfinals: Parth Indorda /Guj/ and Himanshu Mali /MP/ beat Ragendra Prasad Rai /UP/ and Nagendra Prasad Rai /UP/ 6-1, 6-1.

Photo caption: Saurav Panja (top) and Manoj Sewa (bottom) in action during their respective men's singles match in Patna on December 2, 2009.

Photo: Aftab Alam Siddiqui