Mahak Jain beats top seed Zeel Desai for ITF title

January 15, 2017 02:20 am | Updated February 19, 2017 09:46 am IST

 Mahak Jain and Uisung Park of Korea.

Mahak Jain and Uisung Park of Korea.

Second seed Mahak Jain did her confidence a world of good as she beat top seed Zeel Desai 7-6(6), 6-3 in the girls final of the ITF grade-2 junior tennis tournament at the DLTA Complex here on Saturday.

By beating an opponent to whom she had lost the final at the same venue last year in the same event, the small-built but stout-hearted Mahak emphasised the improvement she had made. And that did her team, led by coach Sajid Lodi, proud.   At 15, Mahak showed commendable maturity of temperament and the will to play each point on merit, as she bounced back from being down 0-4 to record a memorable triumph. The first set was the key to the contest of high intensity and Mahak survived a setpoint in the tie-break to edge ahead. After winning five games on the trot from being 0-4, Mahak did drop serve in the 11th game, but broke back to force the tie-break. Zeel was a bit unlucky as she got an overrule in the third point on the ninth game in the first set, when she should have been ahead 30-15. The point was replayed and she eventually dropped serve as the match tended to slip away from her firm grasp. It had to be conceded that there were moments when Mahak was also not happy with some calls, but overall the umpire was quite sharp in matching the fierce strokes of the two players, both of whom would be competing in the Australian Open junior event soon in Melbourne. In the second set, Mahak broke serve in the fifth and seventh games, but failed to serve out the match in the eighth. Zeel failed to convert three gamepoints in the ninth game as Mahak forced the errors to clinch the contest in about two hours. It was the second grade-2 singles title for Mahak following the one in Japan. She had won the grade-3 title in Chandigarh last week. She had also finished runner-up in doubles with Yasmina Karimjanova of Uzbekistan. The additional points should help Mahak get closer to the top-50 from her current career-best rank of 62. By winning some touch matches along the way, including the one over Axana Mareen of Belgium in the quarterfinals from being down 1-4 in the decider, Mahak had demonstrated a certain quality in her game that should take her far. Even though Zeel was the favourite, and had beaten Mahak every time, there was no guarantee as coach Todd Clark had pointed out even before the final that Mahak played ‘’very solid’’. On her part, Mahak was content to say that she had hoped to win. She was thrilled to execute an impressive performance that should give a lot of confidence to girls who feel that they don’t have the height to play better. In the boys final, top seed Uisung Park of Korea bounced back after a lethargic start to beat the tall and strongly-built Len Schouten of the Netherlands 3-6, 6-1, 6-0. Park had played only the doubles last week and won the title in Chandigarh. He was easily the best this week with his all-round game as he emerged victorious in both the singles and doubles. The results (finals): Boys: Uisung Park (Kor) bt Len Schouten (Ned) 3-6, 6-1, 6-0. Girls: Mahak Jain bt Zeel Desai 7-6(6), 6-3.

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