French Open Juniors: Arnav Paparkar powers through round 3; Maaya Rajeshwaran falls short against Makarova

Paris: Arnav Paparkar leaned on a powerful serve, winning 81 percent of first-serve points, to knock out the 15th seed Kuan-Shou Chen of Chinese Taipei and charge into the third round of the French Open boys' singles.Roared on by a sprinkling of Indian fans cheering in Hindi and Marathi, the teenager wrapped up a 6-2, 6-4 win in 72 minutes.The 18-year-old, who took early leads in both sets, set the pace in a match that could’ve been uphill. Chen, 5 ft 5’, strong off the ground on both flanks and playing with a lot of spin, is a stayer.Paparkar, whose first serve hit speeds of 185 and 198 kmph, threw in a generous amount of drop shots, had clearly done his homework.“I had a tactic, and it worked,” he said. “I knew he was going to grind. My tactic was to bring him to the net and give him heavy shots on his backhand and play aggressively. I managed to do it consistently.”Paparkar, who was back on court two hours later, teamed with Thailand’s Kunanan Pantaratorn in the boys doubles and came through 7-6 (7), 6-2 in 77 minutes against Britain's Mark Ceban and Russia’s Kirill Filaretov in the first round.Maaya bows outIndia's Maaya Rajeshwaran Revathi fought hard but was unable to progress beyond the second round of the junior girls' singles, the 16-year-old falling 6-7(6), 4-6 to eighth-seeded Russian Mariia Makarova in a one-hour, 37-minute contest.There was little between Maaya and Makarova as they dragged each other from corner to corner in a series of bruising rallies. The Indian had the first opportunity to take the opening set, serving at 6-5 and later holding the first set point of the tie-break at 6-5. She responded well to that setback and tried to dictate the second set, but as the match wore on it became apparent that she was not operating at full physical strength.“It came down to a few decisions. I should have converted the set point,” Maaya said. “I had my opportunities. She played better when it mattered the most.”Balaji-Demoliner in quartersThe Indo-Brazilian combination of Sriram Balaji and Marcelo Demoliner put out sixth seeds Kevin Krawietz and Tim Puetz of Germany 7-5, 6-4 to make the French Open quarterfinals.Puetz's serve was misfiring and he lacked his usual sharpness around the court, but Balaji and Demoliner, contesting just their fourth tournament together and carrying only one win from their first three events, accelerated at the key moments.Balaji, in his first major quarterfinals, put the slow start down to nerves. “We knew that Tim hasn’t been at his best from the start of the tournament, but they’re not going to give it to us, we knew we had to go take it from them,” Balaji said.Balaji and Demoliner play second seeds Harri Heliovaara and Henry Patten in the quarterfinals.“At this level, it's about who executes better on the day,” he said. “We’ll sit down and talk and hopefully we’ll be able to play our best tennis in the quarters.”