Pune: Vijay Sundar Prashanth, Yuki Bhambri and Sumit Nagal scored straight -set wins while Ramkumar Ramanathan had to sweat hard to enter round two of the $50000 + Hospitality KPIT MSLTA ATP Challenger, at the MSLTA School of Tennis in Balewadi Sports Complex, on Tuesday.
Sumit Nagal started the day on a bright note with a 7-6 (7-1), 6-0 victory over Lucas Miedler of Austria then lucky-loser Vijay Sundar Prashanth getting better of wildcard Aryan Goveas 6-3, 6-4. In the third match on centre court, top seeded Indian Yuki Bhambri scored a 6-2, 7-5 win over Kaichi Uchida of Japan.
Ramkumar Ramanathan had to fight for 2 hours and 56 minutes to beat Marc Polmans of South Africa 6-7 (5-7), 7-6 (7-5), 7-6 (11-9).
In a match between No. 326 and 328 ranked players, the lower ranked Sumit took an hour and 37 minutes to send Austrian Lucas Miedler back home.
The duo kept playing shots in tandem and held serves simultaneously.
Lucas Miedler was 5-4 up at the end of the ninth game and had a chance to take the first set honours, but Sumit saved a set point in the 10th game, which saw players engaging in five deuces.
The eleventh game continued for nine minutes, which again saw five deuces before the Austrian moved ahead 6-5. Sumit’s quick serves and composed game helped him force the set into a tie-breaker, which Sumit took 7-1.
In the second set, Miedler hardly showed any fight as Sumit broke him in second, fourth and sixth games to take the set 6-love to seal the match.
Later, the experienced N Prashant, put aside 19-year-old Mumbai-based Aryan Goveas, who was playing his first-ever ATP Challenger Tour tournament.
Yuki shines
The 25-year-old Yuki Bhambri fought off Japan’s Kaichi Uchida with ease. Victory also meant that the India No 1, who skipped the tournament last year, continued from where he left off in 2015 when he had emerged champion.
Yuki was hardly troubled by qualifier Uchida in the first set. However, in the second, Yuki found himself 1-4 in the arrears.
Composing himself, Yuki fought back to win the match.
Pune boy Arjun loses
Wildcard entrant Arjun Khade from the city could not go beyond the Round 1 as he lost 6-7(5-7), 6-7(4-7) against Ante Pavic of Croatia.
Results
First round: 1-Blaz Kavcic (Slo) bt Geoffrey Blancaneaux (Fra) 6-4, 6-4; 2-Adrian Menendez-Maceiras (Esp)bt q-Borna Gojo (Cro) 6-2, 6-3; 3-Yuki Bhambri (Ind) bt q- Kaichi Uchida (JPN) 6-2, 7-5; 5-Nikola Milojevic (Srb) bt Ivan Nedelko (Rus) 6-4, 6-1; Sumit Nagal (Ind) bt Lucas Miedler (Aut) 7-6 (7-1), 6-0; LL-N Vijay Sundar Prashanth (Ind) bt wc-Aryan Goveas (Ind) 6-3, 6-4; q- Hugo Grenier (Fra) bt Tsung-Hua Yang (Tpe) 6-7, 6-0, 6-0; Brydan Klein (Gbr) bt Pedro Martinez (Esp) 6-2, 6-3; Ramkumar Ramanathan (Ind) bt Marc Polmans (Rsa) 6-7 (5-7), 7-6 (7-5), 7-6 (11-9); Ante Pavic (Cro) bt WC-Arjun Khade 7-6(7-5), 7-6(7-4).
