Rising youngsters Somdev Dev Varman and Karan Rastogi entered the boys' doubles final in the ITF Junior Tennis championships in Thailand.

Dev Varman and Rastogi scored an easy 6-2, 6-3 victory over Kevin Doh of New Zealand and Korea's Hyun-Joon Suk in the semi-finals.

The Indian pair, seeded sixth, had earlier defeated Britain's Matthew Brown and Uzbekistan's Dmitry Ivanov 7-5, 6-2 in the pre-quarters before proceeding to upset the third seed American duo Ruben Gonzales and Chris Kwon 6-2, 6-2 in the quarter-finals.

In the girls' section, it was the 15-year-old Sanaa Bhambri who kept the Indian tricolour flying high after the more experienced Sania Mirza made an early exit.

Sanaa continued her hot streak, scoring a thrilling 6-4, 7-5 win over home girl Montinee Tangphong in the quarter-finals. She had, on Thursday, upset top seed Ryoko Fuda of Japan 7-5, 6-4 in the third round.

One would have expected a stronger performance from the 16-year-old Mirza, who last month won back-to-back ITF titles in Nigeria. But the Hyderabad girl, after a 6-0, 6-0 win over The Philippines' Czarina Mae Arevala in the second round, lost 1-6, 6-4, 3-6 to China's Yanchong Chen in the third round.

The boys' challenge in singles ended in double quick time with Chatwinder Singh and Rupesh Roy bowing out in the first round and Dev Varman and Rastogi stumbling in the second round after getting a bye in the first round.

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