Davis Cupper Vishal Uppal advanced to the semi-finals but compatriot Sunil Kumar Sipaeya crashed out in men's singles quarter-finals in the ITF Futures Tennis Championship in Chennai on Thursday.
Uppal defeated Sarvar Ikramov 4-6, 6-4, 6-1, while Sipaeya went down to Tai-Wei-Liu of Thailand 6-7(2/7), 2-6.
Uppal will meet giant-killer, Dmitriy Mazaur in the semi-finals, while Philip Urban of Poland, who beat Austrian Rainer Eitzinger 6-4, 7-6 (7/4), will take on Tai-Wei-Liu.
Playing in hot and humid conditions on the deco-turf, Uppal launched a superb fightback to oust Uzbekistan's Ikramov.
Ranked 778 on the ATP list, Uppal dropped the first set, losing the vital ninth game with two double faults.
Uppal was broken in the first game but he broke back in the very next. However, Ikramov steadied his game in the ninth to wrest the initiative.
The second set was a different story as Uppal stood up to the pressure and took a 2-0 lead. After he was broken in the fifth game, Uppal came up with two superb down-the-line returns to break back. Though the Indian was broken in the ninth game he returned the compliment to win the set 6-4.
In the deciding third set, Uppal was at his best and broke the Uzbek in the fourth and sixth game to progress to the last four.
In the match betweeen Sunil Kumar and Tai-Wei-Liu, the Indian faced stiff challenge from his opponent.
Sunil Kumar was classy with his ground strokes and though he was broken twice (9th and 11th games), he fought back to force the set into the tie-break.
However, in the tie-break, Liu was confident with his baseline game and, capitalising on
Sunil Kumar's errors, emerged triumphant.
In the second set, Sunil had problems with his serve and was broken twice as Liu proceeded to win the set and match.
