DOUBLE FIST OF FURY...Top seed Gaurav Natekar executes a double-fisted return on his way to title win.

MUMBAI, May 10: The men's and women's final of the Sterling Resorts Mumbai Hard Court Open Tennis Tournament at the Shivaji Park Gymkhana could not have been more contrasting.

While top seed Gaurav Natekar whitewashed seventh seed Jagdish Tanwar of Rajasthan 6-0, 6-0 in just 72 minutes of utterly lop-sided tennis, women's fourth seed Janaki Krishnamoorthy slugged it out for 140 minutes from the baseline to shock the top seed Rushmi Chakravarthy of Tamil Nadu 3-6, 6-3, 8-6.

When the men's singles started, there was a buzz of excitement around the court. After all, Tanwar had troubled Natekar in the quarter-final of last week's State Open meet before going down in three sets. Also, Natekar had complained of his ``occasional on and off days'' after losing to Harsh Mankad in that tournament's final.

But today happened to be a ``on'' day for the former Davis Cupper. The 25-year-old showed superb touch at the net and drilled several passing shots past the hapless left-handed Tanwar to win Rs 10,000 for his efforts. There was a lot more precision in Natekar's shots today and a few cross court and down-the-line shots he played had Tanwar searching.

Tanwar had a series of unforced errors and compounded his misery with three double faults. In fact in the first four games, he could win just three points.

Tanwar put up a much better fight in the second set and could have broken Natekar's serve on a couple of occasions as he fought his way to duece thrice in the second game, after dropping his serve in the opening game, and even held a break-point in the fourth before squandering that chance too. He seemed to have given up after the disappointment of not breaking Natekar in the fourth game despite taking his rival to three dueces and simply caved in thereafter. He got Rs 5,600 for finishing runner-up.

The women's final was a ding-dong battle with former National champion Janaki coming out trumps at the end after recovering from the first-set loss. The decisive break in the decider came in the 13th game for Janaki. It was a sort of revenge match for Janaki as she had lost to Rushmi in the final of the State Open last week.

The two traded breaks in the first two games of the opening set before the Madras-based Rushmi broke her rival decisively in the sixth game to win the set 6-3.

But Janaki, a former National hard court champion, raised her level of play in the second set and won by breaking Rushmi's serve in the third and ninth games.

The decider was very closely contested till Janaki managed to make the all-important break in the 13th game to move 7-6 ahead. She, then, seized the opportunity by holding serve in the next game to clinch the set and the title.

Janaki received Rs 7,000 and Rushmi got Rs 5,000.

Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.