Defending champions crash out in Nat. Games tennis

Defending men's and women's champions Ajay Ramaswami and Rushmi Chakravarthy respectively crashed out of in the quarter-finals of the individual tennis event at the 32nd National Games in Hyderabad on Wednesday.

Young Chatwinder Singh of Chandigarh tamed Ramaswami 3-6, 6-3, 7-5 while Maharashtra's Sonal Phadke stunned Chakravarthy 7-6(7-5), 6-0 to move into the semi-finals, at the SAAP tennis complex.

Top seed Nitin Kirtane of Maharastra, however, lived up to his billing and made his way to the men's semi-finals, getting past Tamil Nadu's Arjun Gautham 6-4, 6-2 without much of a fuss.

Fourth-ranked Ramaswami, of Maharashtra, lost his way after winning the first set as he made a series of unforced errors.

Chakravarthy, the seasoned Tamil Nadu camapaigner, seemed demoralised after losing a keenly-contested opening set and virtually surrender the second set as Phadke played a series of good pasing shots to pull off an upset.

Men's second seed Vijay Kannan also crashed out of the competition when he went down to Vishal Punna of Andhra Pradesh 7-6(7-3), 6-1 in another pre-quarter-final match.

C D Ajay of Karnataka got a walkover against an indiposed Vishal Uppal of Delhi in another pre-quarter final exchange while talented Tamil Nadu player Vinod Sridhar outclassed Delhi's Shivang Mishra 6-4, 6-0 to move into the last eight.