Pari, Aditya emerge under-14 champions

Vissanji Academy's Pari Chavan

Pari Chavan of Vissanji Academy (Andheri) and Aditya Iyer of Dhirubai Ambani School (BKC) won the girls' and boys' U-14 singles crowns respectively in the Mumbai Schools Sports Association-organised inter-school lawn tennis championship at the Schools Sports Centre's tennis courts yesterday. In the girls' final, Pari, 13, dashed the aspirations of Alisha Deogaonkar of Learners Academy (Bandra) as she clinched a 8-2 victory in the 8-points-to-win contest.

Steady Aditya
Aditya, 13, played steadily and was in complete control against an error-prone Omar Sumar of Fazlani School (Mazgaon) and charged to an 8-3 triumph. The tall and lanky Pari chased down every ball from Alisha and managed to keep it in play. In contrast, Alisha was not at her best and struggled with her service and failed to hold her serve even once. Pari waited patiently for the openings and capitalised on the unforced errors of Alisha to run away to victory.

Aditya Iyer of Dhirubai Ambani returns to Omar Sumar of Fazlani during the MSSA U-14 tennis final yesterday. Pics/Atul Kamble

She broke all the five service games of Alisha and dropped her serve twice in the third and seventh games, but otherwise was quite steady and was a deserving winner. In contrast, Aditya faced little opposition from Omar, who was not able to get things right, and gave away too many easy points. Aditya exploited the situation and went on to close out the match.

Earlier, Arjun Chatterjee of Jamnabai Narsee (Vile Parle) defeated his schoolmate Saheb Singh Sodhi 8-4 to bag the boys' U-16 title. Bhumika Tripathi of Canossa Convent (Andheri) had won the girls' U-16 title having defeated Harshali Mandavkar of Bombay Scottish (Mahim) 8-5 in the final last Saturday.

Urvee, Vedant win
Urvee Kate of Gundecha Education Academy (Kandivli) and Vedant Bhasin of Hiranandani School (Powai) emerged champions winning the girls' and boys' U-12 singles titles respectively. Playing aggressively, Urvee overcame Rhianna Rodrigues of Pinnacle HS (Malad) by a comfortable 8-2 margin, while a determined Vedant brushed aside the challenge from Shaan Worlikar of Don Bosco (Matunga) for a 8-2 win.

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