ISLAMABAD, Oct 5: Rupesh Roy of India registered five breaks to beat compatriot Sumit Gupta after full three sets and clinched the boys’s singles title in the first leg of the ITF Pakistan International Junior Tennis Championship at Islamabad Club clay courts on Sunday.
15-year-old Rupesh, hailing from Kolkata, scored a 7-5, 4-6, 6-2 victory over Sumit Gupta in the best-of-three boys’s singles final in an all-India affair in the first leg of this international ranking tournament.
Rupesh, playing and winning the final despite blisters in his left hand, wrapped up the first set at 7-5 by breaking Gupta’s serve in the 12th game which proved the last of this set after the two players had earlier held their respective serves.
Gupta, from UP and ranked two places below no.4 Rupesh, broke his opponent in the very first game of the second set but lost his own serve in the very next game to let go the advantage.
Gupta, however, broke the ninth game of Rupesh to take a 5-4 lead and then held his own serve to win this set, thus taking the match into the deciding set.
The final set started on an exciting note as there were breaks for Rupesh in the second and fourth games and Gupta in the third game.
Nonetheless, Rupesh held the initiative with two of these three consecutive breaks and again broke his opponent in the eighth game to easily win the set as well as the match.
Roy, member of India’s junior Davis Cup team as is Sumit Gupta, collected 30 international ranking points from this victory. “I am delighted to win the match and I enjoyed playing here”, said Rupesh.
Both Rupresh and Gupta recently returned from Germany where India finished 15th in the junior Davis Cup Tennis Championship.
Sumit Gupta paired up with compatriot Vivek Shokeen to win the boys doubles earlier in the tournament with victory over Pakistani duo of Shehzad Khan and Wasif Cheema in the final.
The Thai girls, however, defeated their Indian rivals with victories in both the girls singles and doubles events.
The second leg of the tournament gets underway on Monday.—APP