By IANS,
New Delhi : Indian challenge ended in the doubles as well when Prakash Amritraj along with his US-based Indian partner, Rajeev Ram lost to the Australian pair of Samuel Groth and Colin Ebelthite in the $50,000 SAIL Open ATP challenger at the DLTA Complex here Friday.
Amritraj-Ram had no answer to the Groth-Ebelthite’s net play and superb shot placement and were beaten in straight sets 6-4,6-4.
In the singles semi-finals, top seed Lu Yen-hsun from Chinese Taipei (Taiwan) registered a convincing victory over Japanese Go Soeda thrashing him in straight sets 6-3,6-1.
In a largely one-sided affair, Lu played solid tennis from the baseline and the depth of his groundstrokes restrained Soeda from charging the net.
Fourth-seeded Soeda committed far too many unforced errors as Lu engaged him long rallies. Once he was broken in the sixth game, he was in trouble and all that the Chinese-Taipei player needed to do was to hold his serve to take the first set.
Once he took the first set, Lu was relentless in wearing down his opponent in the second. Soeda dropped his first two service games and that gave little chance for him to come back.
Lu now meets seventh-seeded American Brendan Evans for the title clash Saturday after the American was given a walk over when Dane Kristian Pless pulled out owing to a stomach bug.