Sandeepti Rao of Haryana placed herself in line for the coveted double crown as she, along with statemates Sushant Dabas, Divesh Gahlot and Maharashtra’s Sudipta Senthil Kumar, made it to the singles finals in the boy’s and the girl’s section at the 12th Ramesh Desai Memorial tennis nationals for boys and girls under-16 being hosted by the Cricket Club Of India (CCI) at their tennis courts.
The 13th seeded Sandeepti from Haryana will now clash with 14th seeded Sudipta from Maharashtra for the girl’s singles crown. In the girl’s doubles final, she and partner Vanshika Chaudhari lifted the title.
In the boys single’s finals, third-seeded Sushant will take on fourth seeded Divesh. In the semi-finals played on Saturday, third-seeded Sushant stopped the winning run of Mohit Bondre, the 16th seed from Gujarat, 6-2, 7-5. In the second semis, fourth seeded Divesh registered the biggest upset of the day when he swept past second seeded Udit Gogoi of Assam 3-6, 6-0, 7-6 (5) in a two-hour-45-minute tussle
In the girls semi-finals, 13th seeded Sandeepti stopped the giant-killing spree of Tamil Nadu’s Vipasha Mehera 7-6 (3), 7-6 (5) in a tightly contested match. She will now take on Sudipta, who easily accounted for second seeded state mate Prerna Vichare, winning 6-0, 6-2 in a one-sided encounter.
Rao placed herself in line for the coveted double crown as she lifted the girls doubles title today partnering Vanshika Chaoudhari of Uttar Pradesh the duo easily accounted for the Maharashtra pair of Richa Choughule and Prerana Vichare winning 6-3, 6-3 in the final. Uddayvir Singh of Assam and Dhruv Tangri of Punjab claimed the boys doubles title as they battled out the fighting Haryana pair of Sushant and Divesh 6-3, 3-6, 10-8.
