Sidharth rawat loses second qualifying round in taipei challenger

Sidharth Rawat was beaten 7-6(4), 6-2 by Alssandro Bega of Italy in the second qualifying round of the $150,000 Challenger tennis tournament in Kaohsiung, Chinese Taipei, on Sunday.

Three other Indian players, Sasi Kumar Mukund, Kaza Vinayak Sharma and Vijay Sundar Prashanth lost in the first round.

Ramkumar Ramanathan and Prajnesh Gunneswaran will figure in the main draw as the sixth and eighth seeds respectively.

Jeevan Nedunchezhiyan will be the top seed in doubles in partnership with Austin Krajicek of the US, while Sriram Balaji and Vishnu Vardhan renew their partnership as the second seeds. Ramkumar plays the doubles with Vijay Sundar Prashanth.

Purav Raja, who won the title in Istanbul, with Rameez Junaid of Australia, has been seeded fourth in the Thindown Challenger in Biella, Italy.

in the Challenger in Sibiu, Romania, Sumit Nagal has been drawn to face third seed Pedro Sousa of Portugal in the first round.

The results:

$150,000 Challenger men, Kaohsiung, Chinese Taipei
Qualifying singles (second round): Alessandro Bega (Ita) bt Sidharth Rawat 7-6(4), 6-2.

First round: Frederico Ferreira Silva (Por) bt Sasi Kumar Mukund 7-6(5), 7-5; Yuta Shimizu (Jpn) bt Kaza Vinayak Sharma 6-1, 6-1; Sidharth Rawat bt Li-Wie Tan (Tpe) 6-2, 6-1; Chung Yunseong (Kor) bt Vijay Sudnar Prashanth 7-5, 6-2.