I was wondering why the live scoring seemed to be stuck on deuce during the second game of Kiranpal Pannu’s match with William Grant in Saint-Augustin this morning, but that was simply because there were five of them in a game which took nearly 15 minutes. Pannu held comfortably to start, and then had four break points before Grant managed a game point after the fourth deuce. He blew that with a double fault, and hit another one to gift Pannu the break. Pannu then held again to consolidate the lead, but Grant came roaring back to take the next four games, with Pannu having been up 40-15 in the fifth but losing the seventh to love. He reversed that in the next game to level the scores, and then held comfortably before Grant saved three set points from 0-40. That wasn’t enough, as Pannu won the next two to end the set after 55 minutes.
Pannu extended his sequence to eight games in a row when he won the first five in the second set, having saved a break point in the third and breaking Grant’s serve in the fourth after he had had three game points. Grant finally held serve to avoid the bagel, and Pannu got the wobbles when he sent down his only three double faults in the entire match when trying to serve it out. The first of them gave Grant a break point, and he got another after the third deuce, but Pannu won the next three points to complete the victory after an hour and 42 minutes. The final score was 6-4, 6-1. In tomorrow’s quarter-final Pannu will play the fourth seed, Strong Kirchheimer.