Guwahati, Jan. 9: Sunil Kumar and Rohan Bopanna have set up an all-IOCL summit clash in the ongoing 22nd Petroleum Sports Promotion Board (PSPB) inter-unit tennis championship at Numaligarh on Friday.
In the singles semi-finals on Thursday, Sunil defeated teammate Vasudev Reddy 6-4, 6-3, while Bopanna beat Vinod Sridhar of Gas Authority of India (GAIL) 6-3, 6-1. Home favourites Anshuman Dutta and Ramanuj Dutta of Oil India Limited (OIL) were made to bite the dust by Vasudev Reddy and Rohan Bopanna respectively in the quarterfinals played earlier in the day. Reddy beat Anshuman 6-4, 6-3, while Bopanna outclassed Ramanuj Dutta 6-1, 6-1.
Anshuman entered the round of eight after he was awarded a walkover against GAIL’s Vishal Uppal.
OILman D. Thakuria also made his exit in the last-eight, succumbing to Sunil Kumar 4-6, 4-6. Vinod Sridhar entered the semis beating S. Narendranath of HPCL 4-6, 6-1, 6-1 in the quarters.
IOCL’s Rohan Bopanna and Sunil Kumar later teamed up to storm into the men’s doubles final inflicting a 6-2, 6-3 defeat on the OIL pair of Anshuman Dutta and Abdul Hakim. In the final, the Bopanna-Kumar duo will take on the winners of tomorrow’s second semi-final between IOC pair of Vasudev Reddy and Prahlad Srinath and the GAIL team of Vinod Sridhar and Vishal Uppal. The Anshuman-Abdul pair entered the last-four stage with a walkover against quarterfinal opponents S. Panja and T.S. Bhandari.
The veterans’ singles final will also be played tomorrow between Kalyan Das of OIL and D.J. Dutta of Oil and Natural Gas Corporation Ltd. In the semi-finals played today, Kalyan Das beat Abbas of IOCL 6-1, 6-0 and D.J. Dutta defeated teammate Anoop Kumar 7-5, 6-2.
India club tennis
The four-day seventh India Club Jupiter motor tennis championship will commence at the India Club courts here on January 16.
Apart from the boys under-12, under-14 and under-18 category events and the girls’ under-14 and under-18 categories, the organisers have, this time, introduced veteran doubles in three age-groups (above-35, above-45 and above-55 years).
