Bengaluru: Strong serves, hitting deep and good ball striking were helping Kriish Tyagi skate through a large part of his round of 16 match against Yuta Kawahashi at the Karnataka Open here on Wednesday.
The Bengaluru boy's overall solid game had given Kriish an early break, which was enough for him to close out the first set 6-4. The wild card entrant then raced away to a 4-1 lead in the second set despite losing his own serve once.
But such a high, of everything working in one's favour, is a precarious place to be in on a tennis court. Kriish, while serving to extend the gap in the sixth game, experienced that volatility. The 19-year-old's desire to add more punch to his already strong first serves led to faults as the groundstrokes went long and within the blink of an eye, Kriish watched his serve broken to give the struggling Japanese a lease of life.
It wasn't that the mistakes from Yuta's racquet had drastically reduced, but Kriish getting carried away and making more unforced errors saw the world No. 637 Japanese crawl his way back to 3-4. With a make-or-break eight game staring heavily down the local lad, Kriish found his composure at the right time to hold 5-3. Though the 28-year-old Yuta stayed alive by grabbing the ninth game, Kriish ensured he ended the match in the same fashion he had begun by sending down big first serves to win four straight points for a 6-4, 6-4 victory.
"Yeah, I admit. At 4-1 up (in the second), I got this thought that I was about to reach the quarters," said Kriish, ranked 1322 in the world, in his post-match presser. "I got a bit excited. I tried a bit too much. It shouldn't happen, but it did. Later on, when it got tight, I took some time and got my mindset right. That helped me."
In a tournament that began at the SM Krishna Tennis Stadium with multiple Indians, Kriish, along with 26-year-old Manish Sureshkumar, are the only two remaining. And for both players, it will be their maiden ATP Challenger quarterfinal appearances.
For world No. 829 Manish, facing qualifier and world No. 293 Alastair Gray of England was sure going to be an ordeal. But the cool and calm Chennai man, with nothing to lose, started the contest with the right intent and was later aided by Lady Luck.
By the time Manish saved a break point and held serve to equalise 4-4 in the first set, signs of something troubling his opponent had started to show. Manish had sensed the Englishman's discomfort too. Seizing the rare opportunity, Manish won the opener 6-4.
With momentum clearly on his side, Manish did well to consistently keep the ball in play before Alastair threw in the towel while trailing 2-3 in the second for the match to come to a premature end.
It was curtains down, however, for the third Indian in fray Mukund Sasikumar, who lost 4-6, 4-6 to second seed Hamish Stewart (world No. 292) of Great Britain.
Results: Singles (Pre-quarterfinals, prefix denotes seedings): 2-Hamish Stewart (GBR) bt Mukund Sasikumar (Ind) 6-4, 6-4; 5-Ognjen Milic (Srb) bt Joshua Charlton (Aus) 3-6, 6-4, 6-3; 1-Keegan Smith (USA) bt Dominik Palan (Cze) 4-6, 6-3, 6-4; Ilya Ivashka bt Kokoro Isomura (Jpn) 6-1, 6-2; 7-Maximus Jones (Tha) bt Amit Vales (Isr) 6-2, 6-7 (5), 6-4; Manish Sureshkumar (Ind) bt Q-Alastair Gray (GBR) 6-4, 3-2 (retd); WC-Kriish Tyagi (Ind) bt Yuta Kawahashi (Jpn) 6-4, 6-4; 4-Philip Sekulic (Aus) bt Q-Christopher Papa (USA) 6-2, 6-3.