Vishnu Vardhan and Prerna Bhambri won the men’s and women’s singles National Tennis Championship titles respectively at the RK Khanna Stadium here on Saturday.
Both of them were made to work hard for their victories with the matches going the distance.
In a match lasting two hours, Bhambri prevailed 4-6, 6-4, 6-3 against fellow Delhi girl Karman Kaur Thandi, who made the final for the first time. Bhambri had won the previous two editions of the lucrative championship.
The difference in style between the two was visible from the onset as the 16-year-old Thandi, with her tall frame, boasted of a strong serve and heavy groundstrokes as against Bhambri’s consistency of play — in both her serve and shots.
Thandi broke Bhambri’s serve in the fifth game to gain the upper hand after the two-time defending champion double faulted in a long game. However, she returned favour in the eighth game, Thandi broke back immediately to consolidate her break advantage after Bhambri’s backhand shanked into the net and she threw her racket in disgust. Thandi didn’t make any mistake and took the first set 6-4.
The second set was a more even affair as Bhambri settled into the match. Having stayed on serve till 5-4, Thandi erred at the wrong time. Serving to stay in the set, she double faulted twice and then an unforced error gave Bhambri the set and forced the match into the deciding set.
Thandi took an early advantage in the third breaking Bhambri in the very first game. She then went on to hold serve to make it 2-0. From then on, Bhambri gained control of the match winning five games in a row with errors piling up on Thandi’s side.
Speaking after her win, Bhambri said, “I hadn’t played her before so I didn’t know how she was going to play. She attacked the forehand really well and her crosscourt shots are really good. I was not prepared for that initially and then I changed my game in the second set.”
In the men’s singles competition, Vardhan, with his tall stature and powerful play, emerged triumphant 6-2, 4-6, 6-3 against Uttar Pradesh’s Siddharth Rawat, who almost turned the match on its head but faltered at the final hurdle. The 27-year-old Vardhan, who lost in the 2011 final to Yuki Bhambri, dominated the first set.
The second seemed to go the same way with Vishnu leading 3-0. Then the tide changed as Rawat started mixing his play and took charge of the proceedings. The UP boy made no mistake and took the match into the third.
In the third set, both the players had shaky display of serves but Vardhan took it 6-3 after Rawat saved two match points but he couldn’t save the third with Vardhan smashing his way to victory in a two hour duel.