Bopanna in doubles semis; Somdev crashes out of Tashkent Challenger

Tashkent, Oct 14

Indian players had mixed luck with Rohan Bopanna moving into the doubles semifinals and seventh-seeded Somdev Devvarman losing to Russian Alexandre Kudryavstev in the men' singles at the $125,000 ATP Tashkent Challenger tournament here Wednesday.

The 210th-ranked Kudryavstev shocked Somdev 6-3, 6-4 to enter the quarterfinals.

But Bopanna kept the Indian interest alive. He with Chinese Taipei's (Taiwan) Lu Yen-hsun outplayed the Spanish pair of Inigo Cervantes-Huegun and Guillermo Plaso 6-3, 6-4.

Bopanna and Lu will now take on local favourites Denis Istomin and Murad Inoyatov who scored a 6-3, 6-0 win over Russian pair of Michail Elgin and Evgeny Kirillov.

In the singles match, Kudryastev broke Somdev in the fourth game and served consistently to take the first set. In the second set, the Russian hit unbelievable winners on both flanks to break the off-colour Indian in the seventh game for a 4-3 lead. He then held serve in the eighth and the tenth games to wrap up the match.

"I had seen his game and knew I had to hit hard and play aggressively. I made mistakes, but hit more winners than I do normally," said Kudryastev.

Somdev's second round loss earned him $2,150 and nine ATP points.

Last updated on Oct 14^th, 2009 at 19:26 pm IST--IANS

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