Local favourites Dev and Soha win AITA C’ship titles

Bengaluru, Jan 16 : Local favourites Prajwal Dev and Soha Sadiq won the men’s and women’s singles tennis titles, respectively, at the AITA Championship on Saturday. Both players beat their opponents who were seeded higher than them.
While second seed Dev beat top seed Nikki Poonacha 6-4, 3-6, 6-1, third seed Soha beat second seed Samhitha Chamarthi 6-4, 6-7 (0), 6-2.
The first set of the men’s final went with the serve until the ninth game when Dev broke Poonacha’s serve to win the set 6-4. Poonacha then broke Dev to go up 2-0 in the second set. Both players held their respective serves till 5-3 when Poonacha took the chance and broke Dev once more to take the match into the deciding set.
Dev broke early in the third set as Poonacha struggled with an abdominal strain he picked up from earlier set. The injury hampered his service through the third set as he was able to hold just once as Dev stormed through to take the set and match at 6-1.
The women’s singles final saw both players breaking each other before Soha finally held her serve at 5-4 to take the first set. Although the battle continued in the second set in the same vein, Samhitha looked a shade better and took an early 2-0 lead. Soha rallied after 3-5 to push the set into a tie-breaker. But she couldn’t sustain her momentum and was blanked by her opponent in the tie-breaker.
In the final set, Samhitha’s exhaustion showed on the court when compared to Soha’s fitness and power, which made the difference in the decider as the latter clinched the match.