Rishi Sridhar, Archana Venkataraman upset

Fourth seeds Rishi Sridhar of Tamil Nadu and Archana Venkataraman of Karnataka fell by the wayside in the second round of the men's and women's singles respectively, in the Senior National grasscourt tennis championships in Calcutta on Wednesday.

Unfancied Maharashtra lad Kedar Shah served and volleyed well to stun Sridhar 6-4, 3-6, 6-4 even as top seed Vinod Sridhar carved out an easy 6-1, 6-3 win over Delhi's Gurmeher Singh to romp into the men's singles quarter-finals at the Calcutta South Club lawns.

The men's top seed, who survived a scare against qualifier R Narendran on Tuesday, put up an improved display to put it across his opponent in only 55 minutes.

In the women's singles, Maharashtra's Liza Pereira pulled off a stunning 6-1, 6-2 upset over Venkataraman to move into the last eight. The fancied Karnataka player seemed far from her best as she meekly succumbed to her much lower-ranked opponent.

However, women's top seed Manisha Malhotra of Maharashtra made short work of Andhra Pradesh lass Nandini Perumal 6-4, 6-3 while defending champion and sixth seed Radhika Tulpule overwhelmed N Karsolia of Uttar Pradesh 6-3, 6-2 to advance into the quarter-finals.

Second seed Sonal Phadke of Maharashtra, who was stretched before before pipping Goutham Sheetal in a first round encounter on Tuesday, found her bearings to chalk out an easy 7-5, 6-2 victory over birthday girl Janaki Krishnamoorthy.

Third seed Rushmi Chakravarti of Tamil Nadu crushed West Bengal's Karina Ahuja 6-0, 6-0 to reach the quarters along with Phadke.

The men's singles exchanges saw Maharashtra's Rohan Bopanna, who scalped second seed Vijay Kannan earlier, also progress to the quarter-finals with a 6-3, 6-0 win over wild card Shivang Mishra of Delhi in only 50 minutes, while fifth seed, Tamil Nadu's Manoj Mahadevan humbled statemate Kamala Kannan 6-3, 6-4 in another one-sided contest.

But the toughest match of the day was fought between third seed Delhi's Vishal Uppal and Vasudev Reddy of Andhra Pradesh, with the former finally coming out on top 7-5, 6-7 (6-8), 7-6 (7-3) after a 164-minute contest.

Men's fifth seed Manoj Mahadevan of Tamil Nadu coasted to a comfortable straight set 6-3, 6-4 win over wild card and statemate Kamala Kannan, and seventh seed Maharashtra's Mustafa Ghouse outclassed Kamlesh Shukla of Uttar Pradesh 7-5, 7-6 (7-3) on way to reaching the quarters.

The host state also had something to rejoice as two of their men progressed into the last eight.

While sixth seed Sourav Panja snuffed out a feeble challenge from qualifier Maharashtra's Sangram Chapekar 6-4, 6-2 to settle for a clash with Vinod Sridhar, wild card entrant Anand Rahdhakrishnan prevailed 6-1, 6-4 over Karnataka boy S K Shivshankar, who had caused the downfall of eighth seed Vijayendra Laad in the opening round.