NATIONAL GAMES | Tamil Nadu men jolt defending champion Karnataka for title

Manish Sureshkumar leads Tamil Nadu to victory over Karnataka in National Games tennis finals after 10-year hiatus.

Manish Sureshkumar found the Parade Ground court and the ball a little too fast in the men’s team final of the 38th National Games tennis competition here on Friday evening. And the 25-year-old was playing Karnataka’s strong Prajwal Dev, an opponent he had lost to every time in the last few years and the second seed here in the men’s singles.

But Manish pulled off an impressive three-set victory, to follow up Abhinav Sanjiv’s hard-fought opening singles win, as Tamil Nadu jolted defending champion Karnataka 2-0 and lifted the men’s title after a 10-year break.

Earlier, Maharashtra stunned two-time champion Gujarat 2-0 to take the women’s title.

Prajwal had played a big role in Karnataka’s triumph over Tamil Nadu at the last Games in Goa. And the Karnataka star looked dangerous as he made a nice comeback and grabbed the second set to take the match to the decider. But Manish broke his opponent in the sixth game of the third set to take a crucial 4-2 lead.

“Physically I was struggling a bit but when I got that break of his serve in the third set, I got the confidence that I can close the match,” said Manish.

“Normally, he likes to dictate a lot, this time I wanted to stay a little more aggressive. I was a bit passive at the start, but I realised that if I kept doing it I was not going to win the match. So I stepped up and attacked a bit more.”

Meanwhile, Vaishnavi Adkar shocked National champion Vaidehee Chaudhari in Maharashtra’s memorable win. Gujarat, which was looking for a hat-trick of National Games women’s team titles after winning at home in 2022 and in Goa in 2023, was in for a shock when Zeel Desai lost to Maharashtra’s Akansha Nitture in the opening singles.