Odisha boy Mahesh Mohapatra inched closer to No 1 position in the under-12 national rankings by winning the singles title and finishing doubles runners-up in the CLTA-AITA Super Series Under-12 Tennis Tournament at Chandigarh today. This was the maiden Super Series singles title for India No 4 Mahesh, who also has three Talent Series titles under his belt.

Third seed Mahesh won the singles crown, beating second seed and India No 3 Neel Garud of Madhya Pradesh 7-5, 6-3 in the summit clash. Earlier in the semifinals, he upset top seed and India No 1 Dev V Javia (Gujarat) 7-5, 6-2.
A trainee of Bhubaneswar-based Ace Base Tennis Academy, Mahesh started his singles campaign with a 6-3, 6-2 win over Dhruv Tangri (Punjab). He booked a berth in the last-four round by trouncing Nikhil Thiru Niranjan (Karnataka) 6-0, 6-0 in the second round and Divesh Gahlot (Haryana) 6-3, 6-3 in the quarterfinals.

A Standard-V student of DAV Public School (Chandrasekharpur), Mahesh missed what would have been a glorious double as he and his partner Dev Javia lost to Neel Garud and Asav Kumar in the doubles final 6-1, 6-2.
The Chandigarh tournament fetched Mahesh 50 AITA ranking points in singles and 40 in doubles. According to his coach Ajay Nishank, he is set to move up to the No 2 position in the updated National rankings.

``Currently Bapu (as Mahesh is fondly known) is occupying the No 4 position with 280.25 points. With addition of 60 points through his impressive performance at the Chandigarh SS, he is all set to become India No 2 in the new AITA u-12 ranking list,`` said Nishank.

An AITA Level-II coach, Nishank is also hopeful of his disciple replacing Javia as India No 1 with another impressive show at the AITA-KTPPA Under-12 National Series Tournament, scheduled to be held at Bangalore from April 14.
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PHOTO: Mahes Mohapatra (Right) and Neel Garud in Chandigarh on April 11, 2014.