India's Prakash Amritraj stormed into the semifinals of the USD 15,000 ITF Futures tennis championship in Bangalore with a fluent 6-3, 6-4 victory over Jasper Smit (Netherlands).
Seventh seeded Amritraj, world number 325, served and volleyed well to outplay Smit who struggled to get his act together in the 67-minute encounter at the Karnataka State Lawn Tennis Association courts.
Croatia's Ivan Cerovic also advanced to the last four, defeating Kamil Capkovic (Slovakia) 6-1, 6-3 in just over an hour.
Twenty-one-year-old Amritraj broke Smit, ranked 479 in the world, in the eighth game to go 5-3 up and held his own serve to win the first set without any difficulty.
Unable to get into his rhythm in the second set, Smit lost the ninth game to the Indian, son of legendary Vijay Amritraj, to concede a 5-4 lead and then made no serious effort to save the set.
Smit banged his racket in disgust but Amritraj kept his cool and gave a good account of himself.
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