Spottl upsets Delgado

Martin Spottl of Austria caused a major upset when he sent fifth seed Jamie Delgado of England crashing out of the men's singles in the ATP Challenger tennis championship, in Chandigarh, on Thursday.

Spottl won in straight sets 6-4, 6-2 to reach the quarter- finals.

In other second round matches, second seed Andy Ram of Israel disposed off lucky loser Donavan September of US 6-3, 6-4 while qualifier Dmitri Mazur of Uzbekistan overcame Peter Thornadtsson of Sweden 7-6 (7/2), 7-5 in a tough encounter to book berths in the quarter-finals.

Another qualifier, Noam Okum of Israel also made it to the last eight stage with a 6-3, 6-4 win over Boris Borgula of Slovakia.

The match between Spottl and Delgado was evenly poised till the eighth game of the opening set with both players holding on to their serves. In the ninth, Spottl, 15-40 down, saved two break points but ultimately had to yield to the powerful game of Spottl.

The break proved decisive as Spottl won the next game to take the first set 6-4.

The second set was easier as Spottl broke Delgado in the first and fifth games to take a 5-1 lead. Delgado held on to his serve in the seventh but could not prevent Spottl from wrapping up the affair in the eighth.

Andy Ram raced to a 5-0 lead in the first set with breaks in the second and fourth games. September fought back and broke Andy in the seventh to make the score 3-5 before the Israeli served out the set in the next game.

The second set saw the players trade breaks in the third and sixth games to be level at 3-3. Andy obtained a vital break in the ninth game to take the set and clinch the match in one hour nine minutes.

Mazur and Thornadtsson were engaged in a gruelling encounter that saw the players holding their respective serves for a 6-all score to force the first set into a tie-breaker which Mazur won comfortably 7-2.

In the second set mazur lost the first point then won the next four points in a row, which included an ace on the third point.

The second set was an equally tight affair with a 5-all score before Mazur obtained the vital break to wound up the proceedings in one hour 40 minutes.

Indian hope Leander Paes had already made it to the quarter-finals. He will meet fourth seed Frantisek Cermak of the Czech Republic on Friday.

Top seed Van Scheppingen of The Netherlands will also be seen in action in the quarter-finals, where he will meet Czech's Ota Furarek.

In the men's doubles event, top seeded pair of Oleg Ogorodov of Uzbekistan and Andy Ram were ousted by the duo of Jamie Delgado and Dennis van Scheppingen of Netherlands 2-6 6-3 6-4 in a quarter-final match.