Ghouse ends Sandeep Kirtane's run

Sandeep Kirtane's dream run in the $6250 ITF men's Satellite tennis tournament came to a halt as top seed Mustafa Ghouse defeated him 3-6, 6-1, 6-1 in the quarter-finals at the DLTA complex in Delhi on Thursday.

Ghouse will meet fourth seed Eliran Dooyev of Israel, who defeated Rafael Moreno-Negrin 4-6, 6-3, 6-2, in the semi-finals on Friday.

Nitin Kirtane eliminated eighth seed Giunior Ghedina of Germany 6-4, 7-6 (7/0) in another quarter-final. He will now meet second seed Tomer Suissa of Israel, who scraped past Raviv Volkovotzky 7-5 6-4.

Sandeep Kirtane finally met his match in Ghouse. Coming out of a self-imposed retirement, Sandeep had seen off India's grasscourt and hardcourt champions, Manoj Mahadevan and Vijay Kannan, in the first and second rounds respectively.

His experience and pure skill proved too much for the two youngsters, whose power game was exposed by a more brainy opponent.

Against Ghouse, however, Sandeep's age let him down. At 28, he was always vulnerable against an opponent who is mature enough to play the waiting game and move him around.

Ghouse just did that to perfection. Although he committed the blunder of playing raw-pace tennis as did his contemporaries to concede the first set, he regrouped quickly and administered Kirtane a dose of his own medicine to clinch the final two sets comfortably.