Srinath goes down to Sherwood

Britain's David Sherwood turned in a solid display to shock Prahlad Srinath, the lone surviving Indian, 3-6, 6-1, 7-5 and enter the final of the $10,000 Rexona-Deo ITF men's tennis championships at the Nungambakkam stadium, in Chennai, on Friday.

It was Sherwood, ranked 709, who had demolished another Indian, Vishal Uppal, in the quarters on Thursday with his good allround game. Today, he did an encore against Srinath, who is ranked higher than him.

The Briton will meet Slovak Branislav Sekac, who edged out Czech Jakub Hasek 7-6 (7-3), 6-4 in the other semi-final.

Sekac broke Hasek in the third game of the first set and then went on to win the tie-breaker, after Hasek had broken him in the 10th game to level at 5-5.

In the second set, however, Sekac was more consistent. He broke Hasek in the fourth and ninth games, after being broken in the eighth, to cruise away with the match.

Srinath played well in patches. He won the first set rather easily after breaking Sherwood in the seventh and ninth games. But he surprisingly grew erratic thereafter. Several unforced errors in the second set gave the Briton the upper hand as he raced away with the set.

Srinath managed to raise his game in the third set as games went with serve till 5-5. But two double-faults by the Indian in the 12th game proved costly as Sherwood broke him and took the set and match.

Partnering compatriot Jonathan Marray, Sherwood won the doubles title. In the final, the third seeded pair survived a first set loss and two tie-breaks to defeat the unseeded Indian duo of Rohan Bopanna and Vijay Kannan 3-6, 7-6(6), 7-6(8).