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Arihant Kaul and Arzan Khorakiwala emerged as the champions in contrasting styles as the curtains came down on the KSLTA-AITA TS 7 Under-14 tournament, an event on the Tattvam Junior Tour, here on Friday.

In the finals played at the KSLTA Tennis Stadium, Arihant silenced the giant killer Yash Panchaxari with a roller-coaster 7-6 (7-5), 6-2 victory while Mysore lass Arzan quelled the challenge of Gurleen Kaur Khanuja in straight sets 6-3, 6-3.

Abhradeep Bhattacharyya and Srikar Doni combined together to beat the duo of Aditya Narayanan and Prakaash Sarran 7-6 (4), 6-1 to win the Boys Doubles title while the pair Shrishti Kiran and Thanu Vishwas toiled for a 6-1, 3-6, 10-7 victory over the team of Disha Kumar and K Padmakumar for the girls doubles honours.

The Boys final began with both players adopting an aggressive approach. Both the rivals played flawless tennis at times and lost focus in the same vein. So much so that both of them were able to hold their serves only on three occasions in the first set, which was resolved via a tie-breaker, during which, the 14-year-old Arihant managed to commit lesser number of unforced errors compared to his opponent. The UPTA trainee was in a different mood in the second set as he raced to a 5-0 lead and was just two points away from victory when Yash came up with two stunning cross court winners and broke his serve. He also showed signs of a comeback by winning the next game at 15, but Arihant put brakes on his wishes and served out for the match.

Meanwhile in the Girls final, Arzan with her good serve took an early 2-0 lead. Gurleen who has a weak serve compensates with her powerful forehand and backhand and did give the better ranked player a good fight until the sixth game which she levelled with a break. However, the Raghubir Tennis Academy Mysore trainee Arzan took her game a notch higher and had a ready answer for her rival’s cross court returns and won the next three games on a trot to pocket the first set. Gurleen seemed to be a better player in the first part of the second set when she took a 3-1 lead. But Arzan, the 13-year-old student of Ican The Learning Centre, served and moved better and won the next five games in a row to win her second successive Under-14 title after her victory in Coimbatore last week.   

Results all finals (prefix denotes seedings)

Boys Singles

Arihant Kaul bt Q-Yash Panchaxari 7-6 (5), 6-2.

Doubles

2-Abhradeep Bhattacharyya / Srikar Doni bt 1-Aditya Narayanan / Prakaash Sarran 7-6 (4), 6-1.

Girls Singles

2-Arzan Khorakiwala bt 8-Gurleen Khanuja 6-3, 6-3.

Doubles

3-Shrishti Kiran / Thanu Vishwas bt 4-Disha Kumar / K Padmakumar 6-1, 3-6, 10-7.