Pint-size Apurva Ringangaonkar earned a hard fought 7-6 (7-5) win over Ayman Khan to move ahead, in the 16th edition of RCBC Junior Open Tennis Tournament (under-10) at the club court here on Monday.

The game which witnessed baseline encounter saw the players tied 6-6 for the enforcement of the tie-breaker. Khan, played some accurate strokes to take a crucial 4-2 lead in the tie-breaker. But, Ringangaonkar raised his game dramatically and came back to take a 5-3 lead.

With still two points in favour, Khan was almost sure about his win. However, it was a couple of drop shots from Ringangaonkar which took the match away from Khan. Boosted with the confidence Ringangaonkar was quick to finish the match with 7-5 score.

“I was little nervous in the tie-breaker. So I missed my shots and I lost,” said Khan, standard III student of Delhi Public School. But this player from Nanand Bal Academy, Magarpatta City was confident about his return in the next tournament. “Next time I will not make the same mistakes and will try to be calm during the match,” he added.

Meanwhile, in the girls' under-8 section, Labdi Gandhi and Neha Ghare entered in the last four round with a convincing win over Khushi Aslam and Riya Wayal respectively.

Result: Boys (under-10/2nd round) Krishna Mahurani bt Akshay Lulla 6-2, Aman Jindal bt Adi Ure 6-4, Aditya Iyer bt Siddarth Bagwe 6-4, Apurva Ringangaonkar bt Ayman Khan 7-6 (7-5), Rohan Bhoge bt Chaitanya Bhojane 6-2

Girls (under-8) Labdi Gandhi bt Khushi Aslam 6-2, Neha Ghare bt Riya Wayal 6-1 (under-10 Ketaki Shinde bt Rajnandini Kulkarni 6-0, Mallika Karmarkar bt Riya Chaphekar 6-2, Samruddhi Ghumare bt Neha Panchal 6-3.

Under-14) Niyati Kohli bt Anjali Aswani 6-3, Sanaya Kurup bt Aiswarya Ranade 6-1, Sakhee Bhure bt Shonali Chapekar 6-0, Raika Karachiwalla bt Aishwarya Salagare 6-0, Anushka Sathe bt Payal Gaikwad 6-0, Devayani Menkar bt Anisha Aswani 6-3, Simran Nanwani bt Sakshi Karnawat 6-0, Liyaan Akalkotkar bt Snehal Magar 6-0.