The Indian challenge in the USD 15,000 ITF Futures Tennis championship came to an end when Prakash Amritraj lost the singles semi-final and the doubles pair of Harsh Mankad and Sunil Kumar Sipaeya went down in the final, in Bangalore on Friday.
Twenty-one year old Amritraj lost 7-6 (7/4), 6-1 to Simon Greul of Germany in 87 minutes at the Karnataka State Lawn Tennis Association courts.
In the doubles final, the Dutch duo of Fred Hemmes and Jasper Smit defeated Mankad/Sipaeya 6-1, 6-3.
Amritraj started on an aggressive note, breaking the German in the second game and taking a 3-0 lead in the first set. He was also up 4-1 before Greul staged a remarkable recovery to level the score at 4-4 and then prevail in the tie-breaker.
In the second set, nothing went right for Amritraj as his opponent dominated and sent down winner after winner. He dropped serve in the fourth and sixth games against the temperamental German and count not come back into the match as Greul won the set in just 22 minutes.
