Day 4 Recap

1-00 AM - Nimesh lashes out at organizers

Nimesh Vora was not a happy man Friday evening and he certainly made sure the organizers and everyone else knew about it. After Philips beat Dr. Malpani in the opening match of Group B on Friday evening, Nimesh wanted to take the court to play Philips. However, he was told he would have to wait and that Haresh would play Philips. Nimesh pressed organziers for a reason and when he was told that the Philips-Haresh clash was likely to be more pivotal from the group standings point of view, Nimesh did not take very kindly to that. Caught between the difficult personal schedules of the players and the demanding tournament schedule, organizers then gave Nimesh the option to play Philips but Nimesh was not to be placated and insisted he was fine waiting and asked for the Philips-Haresh match to go ahead.
As events unfolded, Nimesh and Philips both finished with 2-1 records, and their clash turned out to be the pivotal one with the winner qualiying for a semi-final clash against Bharat. Due to lack of time, the match had to be pushed to Saturday evening. While Nimesh did not seem very happy about the second-citizen treatment, there was not much he could do about it. Except keep winnning on the court and becoming a contendor in the latter stages of events. He took a major step in that direction on Friday evening with a victory over Dr. Malpani and is now just one step away from the perfect rebuttal to the tournament organizers.

9-45 AM - Rahul has the women screaming for him

Women screaming, cameras flashing. For a moment, it seemed like we were at a pop concert. And Rahul Baijal was the frontman on stage. Then his opponent Bharat hit a few winners and brought everyone crashing back to reality.
With the round robin match between Bharat and Rahul tied at 1-1, a group of women made their way to the sidelines at MSLTA and started rooting wildly for Rahul. While one of them was identified to be his wife, the identity of the others could not be established. The women certainly lifted the atmosphere at the courts. Even other players started getting involved in the fun with one of them telling the women to scream louder. Rahul, himself, seemed a bit embarassed by the actions of his groupies and a couple of times even motioned to them to lower down their volume. Rahul did not win a game after that and lost 1-6.
Meanwhile, the final match of the evening between Bharat and Jonty had all the other players come out on court to watch the ending of the high-quality encounter between classic serve n volleyer and classic retreiver. The match was crucial for deciding group standings and Jonty was doing his best to unsettle Bharat from his game; letting out several 'Commmeee Onnnnns' that ensured we wont miss Lleyton Hewitt at the CWG Games.The match went into extra time and thanks to special arrangements by tournament security officer Watchman Pandey, the players were able to play for ten minutes extra and Bharat wrapped a 6-3 win

2:00 PM - Top AATP stars sign up for Pune AITA qualifying event

Three top AATP players have signed up to play the qualifying event of the All India Tennis Association tournament in Pune in November. Haresh Ramchandani, Ashutosh Goel and Siddharth Singh Rathore will battle with India's top pros in the qualifying draw of the Rs.1 lac event. The main draw begins on Monday 15th November while the qualifying draw will take place on the weekend of 13th-14th November. This would be the fourth attempt of Haresh to qualify for an AITA event, while Ashutosh and Siddharth will make their first appearance on the AITA circuit. Any others interested in signing up can contact AATP offices to find out the procedures.

2-45 PM - Super Saturday schedule

Phillips and Nimesh will kick-off the Super Saturday schedule at 7 pm with the winner facing off against Bharat at 8 pm. Other league matches from Group B (Rizwan vs Ashu, Jonty vs Rahul and Ashu vs Rahul) will also kick off at 7 pm. Rizwan and Haresh are scheduled to start their semi-final at 8 pm as well.

10-35 PM - Philips, Rizwan upset Ramchandanis to enter final

For the first time in AATP history, a Ramchandani will not feature in an AATP final. Philips Eapen, the youngest player in the draw, first beat Nimesh 6-1 today to qualify for the semi-final and then in a nail-biting semi-final upset the No. 2 seeded Bharat 9-8 (9-7). In a take-no-prisoners battle that had the fans compare it to a Becker-Edberg clash, Bharat led 5-3 initially before Philips went up 7-5. At 7-6, 40-30, Bharat hit a cross court backhand return for a winner to save a matchpoint and went on to break back to 7-7. In the tie-breaker, he saved three more matchpoints, but Philips finally won on his fifth. This is the second time that Bharat has lost to Philips in a semi-final on tour.
In the second semi-final, unseeded Rizwan, who has travelled all the way from Dubai to participate in this event, started strong and led 3-1. Top seeded Haresh then came back and built a 5-3 lead but was unable to hold on to it. At 5-5, Rizwan broke again and then held serve twice to complete the 8-6 vicotry. This was only the second time that Haresh has lost on tour to anyone else besides his brother. The only other time that happened was when he lost to Philips in the final of the same tournament where Philips had beaten Bharat in the semis last season. It's only fitting that Philips and Rizwan face-off in the first non-Ramchandani final on the AATP Tour.
In other Group matches that were completed today, Rizwan beat Ashu 6-4, Ashu beat Rahul 6-2 and Rahul beat Jonty 6-4 for his first win on tour