Shekhar Veeraswamy bags wheelchair tennis crown
Shekar Veeraswamy of Karnataka defeated S Balachandar of Tamil Nadu 6-4, 7-5 in straight sets to bag the singles crown at the Marina Open AITA ranking wheelchair tennis tournament.
CHENNAI: Shekar Veeraswamy of Karnataka defeated S Balachandar of Tamil Nadu 6-4, 7-5 in straight sets to bag the singles crown at the Marina Open AITA ranking wheelchair tennis tournament.
Shekar served and returned brilliantly to take the first set rather comfortably at 6-2. In the second set, the defending champion Balachandar put up a brave fight. Balachandar used the drop shot to great effect and served four aces but against that he served 12 doubles faults, four of them in the last game which proved his undoing.
The men’s singles winner received prize money of `30,000 and 30 AITA points and the runner-up received Rs 25,000 and 22 AITA points. The women’s singles winner received Rs 13,000 and 15 points and the runner-up got Rs 6,000 and 12 AITA points.
Indian hockey legend V Baskaran and Paneesh Rao, Human Resources head of L&T, gave away the prizes.
Results: (all finals): Singles: Men: Shekar Veeraswamy (KA) bt S Balachandar (TN) 6-4, 7-5. Women: Prathima Rao (KA) bt Shilpa KP (KA) 7-6 (7), 6-1. Doubles: Women: Final round robin round: Prathima Rao (KA)/Shilpa KP (KA) bt Geeta Chouhan (MH)/Khushbu Ganatra (KA) 6-0, 6-0. Men: Final: Shekar Veeraswamy (KA)/Balachandar S (TN) bt D Mariappan(TN)/Sathasivam Kannupayan (TN) 6-2, 6-2.