Vivek-Ashutosh in semifinals
(ITF $ 10 K Tennis Tournament, Thailand)

THURSDAY 19, August 2010.

Vivek Shokeen and Ashutosh Singh reached the doubles semifinals with a 6-3, 6-2 victory over Yaoki Ishii and Arata Onozawa of Japan in the $10,000 ITF men's Futures tennis tournament in Nakorn Ratchasima, Thailand.

The Indian pair which had earlier beaten Simon Cauvard and Piere-Larry Petrone of France 7-6(4), 6-3, will challenge the top-seeded Ratiwatana twins, Sanchai and Sonchat, in the semifinals.

In singles, Vivek Shokeen qualified and beat fellow qualifier Gao Peng of China 6-7(2), 6-1, 6-4 in the first round, before bowing meekly 0-6, 1-6 to Suk-Young Jeong of Korea.

Vijayant Malik was the other Indian to make the second round, as he beat Nikala Scholtz of South Africa 2-6, 6-3, 6-4, but he lost 3-6, 3-6 to Kento Takeuchi of Japan in the pre-quarterfinals.

The third-seeded Karan Rastogi went down to the Asian Games champion Danai Udomchoke 4-6, 4-6 in the first round. The second-seeded Rupesh Roy, qualifier Kaza Vinayak Sharma, lucky loser Sriram Balaji and N. Vijay Sundar Prashanth were the other Indian losing in the first round.

Ashutosh Singh had lost in the second and final round of the qualifying event to Gao Wan of China 5-7, 2-6.