Good going for Indians on
international circuit

Shailesh Soni

Harsh Mankad moved into the quarter-finals of the $10,000 Canada F1 Satellite tournament, defeating Dominic Boulet of Canada 6-0, 6-3 in the round of 16 on Thursday. Boulet is ranked 843 on the ATP rankings.

Harsh, who is ranked 554, will face the qualifier Peter Handoyo of Indonesia in the quarter-finals, who upset second seed Benjamin Cassaigne of France 5-7, 6-4, 6-4. Handoyo is a top-50 college player from the University of Tennessee.

The quarter-final appearance gives Harsh two ATP points and ensures that he will stay in the rank list even after all the points from last year's satellites fall off in another four weeks.

The Indian is planning to play all three weeks of the Canada futures.

In the doubles, Vikrant Chadha, playing with James Shortall, of New Zealand entered the semifinals, defeating the Canadian pair of Michal Ciszek and Adil Shamasdin 6-4, 6-2. They will now face the American pair of Steve Berke and Kyle Porter in the semifinals.

Berke/Porter defeated another American pair of Cary Franklin and Eric Nunez 6-1, 6-4 in the quarter-finals.

Earlier, Vikrant Chadha and James Shortall defeated fellow-Indian Harsh Mankad playing with Johan Kareld of Switzerland 6-1, 4-6, 6-3 in the first round match.

Meanwhile, Vijay Kannan had a tough time in the first round of the Leg 1 of the Radobank Dutch Clay Satellite being played at Raalte, The Netherlands.

Kannan went down 2-6, 3-6 to qualifier Rik Schalkers of Netherlands. Schalkers was a wildcard into the qualifiers and had upset two seeds easily on the way to the main draw. The Indian had problems playing a qualifier on the European red clay, on which he is trying to get used to.

Kannan is also playing doubles with Steven Bijl of The Netherlands. They will face the third seeded Dutch pair of Paul Logtens and Maarten Paas.

In the women's Challenger circuit too Indians had reason to cheer. Manisha Malhotra, playing with Leanne Baker of New Zealand, upset top seeds Laurence Cortois of Belarus and Emanuelle Gagliardi of Switzerland at the $50,000 Challenger in Marseille, France, 6-4, 2-6, 6-4 to reach the semifinals.

The win gives Manisha 18 WTA points, including 2 quality points for upsetting top ranked players - that should raise her ranking by some 30 spots to near top 225. It will the first time that Manisha is reaching the semifinals of a $50,000 Challenger (she won the title at the $25,000 Challenger in Vietnam with Nirupama a couple of months back). Their semifinal opponents are yet to be determined.

Earlier, Manisha/Baker won their first round match against Severin Beltrame and Sophie Lefevre of France, 5-7, 6-3, 6-3.