Karnataka’s Spurti Shivalingaiah clinched the women’s singles title in the AITA Pro Circuit championship on Friday without playing the final and semifinal after walkovers from her opponents — who opted out to play the ITF Gulbarga Open Futures championship qualifying rounds — turned it into a farcical finish.
Spurti’s semifinal opponent Riya Bhatia and the other finalist Eetee Mehta decided not to play their matches, giving priority to the ITF tournament starting on Monday. The women’s doubles semifinalists also desisted from entering the court and chose to play the tournament in Gulbarga.
Kiran Nandakumar, CEO of Stalwart Sports, organisers of the tournament said they will take up the matter with the AITA. “It is just not proper, we have taken a serious view of these mass walkovers and will be reporting to AITA,’’ he added.
Meanwhile, veteran Nitin Kirtane of Railways registered a hard-fought 6-0, 1-6, 6-4 victory over Rohan Gide to enter the men’s singles final at the KSLTA stadium.
Kirtane will take on Vinod Sridhar, who progressed to the summit clash after opponent Vijay Kannan did not take field citing toe injury and blisters.
Results (all semifinals): Men’s singles: Nitin Kirtane bt Rohan Gide 6-0, 1-6, 6-4; Vinod Sridhar w/o Vijay Kannan. Doubles: Tariq Jacob/ Elvin Antony bt Tejas Chaukulkar/ Yogesh Phogat 6-1, 6-2; Nitin Kirtane/ Saurav Sukul bt Vaidikh Munshaw/ Lakshith Sood 7-6 (7-5), 6-2.
Women’s singles: Eetee Mehta bt Niku Amin 6-1, 6-1; Spurti Shivalingaiah w/o Riya Bhatia.
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