rediff.com: Mankad whips big-serving Thornadtsson

Second seed Harsh Mankad recovered from early jitters to demolish big-serving Per Thornadtsson of Sweden in straight sets and storm into the final of the ITF men's Satellite Masters in Delhi on Thursday.

The 21-year-old Mankad had to dig deep into his reserves to clinch the gruelling first set but found his touch again to script a 7-6(8-6), 6-2 victory and set up a title clash with top seed Danai Udomchoke of Thailand.

Udomchoke, who has been playing flawless tennis in the tournament so far, had no difficulty in brushing aside the challenge of third seeded Sandeep Kirtane, winning 6-1, 6-4.

Mankad seemed unusually subdued in the keenly-contested first set as his lanky Swedish opponent kept the pressure with a flurry of powerful baseline returns.

Thornadtsson forged ahead 5-3 by breaking Mankad in the eighth game but the determined Indian broke back in the next game and held serve to restore parity.

With the score tied at 6-6, Mankad kept his cool in the crucial tie-breaker and played a steady game to tilt the balance in his favour in the first set which lasted 63 minutes.

The hot and humid conditions seemed to take its toll on Thornadtsson in the second set as he could not maintain the same tempo, with even his booming first serves deserting him.

Mankad, who looked a trifle tentative in the first set, raised his game by several notches in the second and took full advantage of the unforced errors committed by his tired opponent.

The Indian broke Thornadtsson in the fourth and sixth games to race to a 5-1 lead. Though he relaxed a little bit and was broken in the seventh game, he did well to tighten up his game and break the Swede in the eighth game and wrap up the set at 6-2.

The other semi-final encounter between top seed Danai Udomchoke and third seeded Sandeep Kirtane turned out to be a rather lopsided contest with the diminutive Indian finding it difficult to counter the superior all round game of his Thai rival.

The wily Udomchoke faced very little resistance in the first set as he broke Kirtane in the second, fourth and sixth games to wrap up the first set 6-1 in just half an hour.

Kirtane, plagued by injury problems during the last two matches, put up an improved performance in the second set but the effort was not good enough to make much of an impact on the top seed who clinched the set 6-4.


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