PRAJNESH GUNNESWARAN DRIVES ON GRASS TO JOIN ROGER FEDERER IN THE MERCEDES CUP

Davis Cupper Prajnesh Gunneswaran had a smooth drive into the main draw of the Mercedes Cup, as he beat Christian Harrison of the US 6-3, 4-6, 6-3 in the second and final qualifying round in Stuttgart, Germany, on Sunday.

The 28-year-old Prajnesh, ranked 183, will challenge sixth seed Denis Shapovalov of Canada in the first round. He figures in the same quarter as top seed Roger Federer.

Prajnesh actually joined his friends, Sriram Balaji and Vishnu Vardhan who already figure in the doubles main draw. The Indian pair is drawn to meet the German wild cards, Philipp Petzschner and Tim Puetz.

In the $250,000 WTA event in Nottingham, seventh seed Ankita Raina continued with her struggle to find her footing on grass, as she was beaten 6-0, 6-4 by Naiktha Bains of Australia in the first qualifying round.

In the $50,000 Challenger in Almaty, Sasi Kumar Mukund was beaten 6-7(4), 7-5, 6-0 by seventh seed Joao Menezes of Brazil in the first qualifying round. Sidharth Rawat was put out by second seed Yusuka Takahashi of Japan while Arjun Kadhe was beaten by Daniel Masur of Germany. 
Arjun made the doubles main draw as a wild card with Denis Yevseyev of Kazakhstan.

Davis Cupper Sumit Nagal figures in the main draw of singles and will play eighth seed Uladzimir Ignatik of Belarus.

Yuki Bhambri figures in the 686,080 Libema Open in s-Hertogenbosch in the Netherlands, and starts against the 53rd ranked Daniil Medvedev of Russia, who treats grass as his favourite. In the doubles draw, Purav Raja and Divij Sharan figure with their partners Fabrice Martin and Artem Sitak respectively.

Ramkumar Ramanathan will start as the fifth seed in the €127,000 Challenger in Nottingham, and will play Jason Jung of Chinese Taipei in the first round.

In the men’s Futures in Harare, Zimbabwe, Jayesh Pungliya qualified for the main draw from among the 12 Indians. PC Vignesh was into the third set of the final qualifying round against Nicolas Genovese of Switzerland.

The main draw has Anurag Nenwani, Anirudh Chandrasekar, Dhruv Sunish and Niki Poonacha as direct entrants.

In Colombo, Chandril Sood and Mohit Mayur made the main draw from the qualifying event that featured 15 Indian players. The two joined VM Ranjeet, Abhinav Sanjeev Shanmugam, Vijayant Malik, Manish Sureshkumar, Kaza Vinayak Sharma, Kunal Anand, Nitin Kumar Sinha and SD Prajwal Dev in the main draw.

In the $25,000 ITF women’s event in Portugal, national champion Mahak Jain made the main draw from the qualifying event without hitting a ball. She got a walkover in the second and final round after a bye in the first. Snehadevi Reddy and Sathwika Sama were scheduled to play their second and final qualifying round.

In the ITF women’s event in Singapore, national champion Riya Bhatia was beaten in the second and final qualifying round. She, however, made the doubles main draw. Karman Kaur Thandi has been seeded second in the singles, and drawn to meet Pei-Chi Lee of Chinese Taipei.

The results:
€ 729,340 Mercedes Cup, Stuttgart, Germany
Qualifying singles (second and final round); Prajnesh Gunneswaran bt Christian Harrison (US) 6-3, 4-6, 6-3; First round: Prajnesh Gunneswaran bt Evan King (US) 6-1, 6-4.

$250,000 WTA, Nottingham, England
Qualifying singles (first round): Naiktha Bains (Aus) bt Ankita Riana 6-0, 6-4.

$50,000 Challenger men, Almaty, Kazakhstan
Qualifying singles (first round): Daniel Masur (Ger) bt Arjun Kadhe 6-4, 7-5; Yusuke Takahashi (Jpn) bt Sidharth Rawat 7-6(2), 6-2; Joao Menezes (Bra) bt Sasi Kumar Mukund 6-7(4), 7-5, 6-0.

$25,000 ITF men, Harare, Zimbabwe
Qualifying singles (third and final round): Jayesh Pungliya bt Sahil Gaware 6-2, 2-6, 7-6(4); Gonzalo Tomas Perez Bacigalupo (Arg) bt Taha Kapadia 7-6(4), 6-3.

Second round: Jayesh Pungliya bt Kunal Vazirani 6-7(6), 6-2, 6-4; Sahil Gaware bt Vlacheslav Glebov (Rus) 6-4, 6-2; Taha Kapadia bt Jorge Blanco Guadalupe (Esp) 4-2 (retired); Jean Erasmus (Nam) bt Prashant Sawant 6-1, 6-0; Jan Jermar (Cze) bt Bharath Srinivaan Parthasarathy 6-3, 6-4; Jiri Vencl (Cze) bt Gunjan Jadhav 6-1, 6-4; NIkolas Moceanu (US) bt Anshumat Srivastava 7-6(4), 6-2; PC Vignesh bt Michale-Ray Pallares-Gonzalez (Dom) 6-3, 6-4.

First round: Lefa Ashley Sibanda (Bot) bt Arjun Mahadevan 1-6, 6-4, 6-4; Nikolas Moceanu (US) bt Tarun Anirudh Chilakalapudi 3-6, 6-1, 6-4; PC Vignesh bt Atharva Sharma 6-2, 6-2.

$15,000 ITF men, Colombo, Sri Lanka
Qualifying singles (second and final round): Daniel Mora (Col) bt Jatin Dahiya 6-1, 7-5; Chandril Sod bt Chanchai Sookton-Eng (Tha) 6-3, 6-1; Louis Clark (Aus) bt Paramveer Singh Bajwa 6-3, 5-7, 6-2; Diego Matos (Bra) bt Lakshit Sood 6-4, 6-1; Mohit Mayur bt Anvit Bendre 6-2, 6-4; Anze Arh (Slo) bt Vasisht Cheruku 5-7, 6-4, 6-2.

First round: Chayanon Kaewsuto (Tha) bt Paras Dahiya 6-3, 7-6(8); Jatin Dahiya bt Mohit Bhardwaj 6-1, 6-4; Chandril Sood bt Tushar Madan 6-0, 6-1; Paramveer Singh Bajwa bt Yash Chaurasia 7-5, 6-4; Lakshit Sood bt Stanislav Poplavskyy (Ukr) 7-6(5), 1-1 (retired); Naoki Takeda (Jpn) bt Vishvender Singh Dhankhar 6-0, 3-0 (reitred); Mohit Mayur bt Gokul Suresh 6-4, 4-6, 6-2; Anvit Bendre bt Amarnath Arora 6-1, 6-4; Vasisht Cheruku bt Amit Beniwal 6-0, 6-3.

$15,000 ITF men, Martos, Spain
Qualifying singles (first round): Nathan Nicholson (Esp) bt Dhyan Patel 6-1, 6-2.

$25,000 ITF women, Singapore
Qualifying singles (second and final round): Ji-Hee Choi (Kor) bt Riya Bhatia 6-4, 7-5; First round: Riya Bhatia bt Mariana Correa (Ecu) 6-4, 6-0.

$25,000 ITF women, Obidos, Portugal
Qualifying singles (second and final round): Mahak Jain w.o. Catarina Castro Cerqueira (Por); First round: Sathwika Sama bt Ines Teixeira (Por) 6-0, 6-0.

$15,000 ITF women, Hammamet, Tunisia
Qualifying singles (first round): Ayaka Ozeki (Jpn) bt Niditra Rajmohan 6-1, 6-0.