Vijay Sundar Prashanth in second round of Chennai Challenger
Vijay Sundar Prashanth battled past Carlos Boluda-Purkiss of Spain 6-2, 2-6, 6-2 in the first round of the $54,160 Challenger tennis tournament in Chennai on Monday.
In the second round, Vijay Sundar will face compatriot and 11th seed Saketh Myneni, who had a bye in the first round along with 15 others in a draw of 64.
Sumit Nagal and Arjun Kadhe also made it to the second round by winning their matches in straight sets, while national champion Siddharth Vishwakarma found Blake Ellis of Australia too hot for his comfort.
Another wild card entrant Abhinav Sanjeev Shanmugam was beaten by Renta Tokuda of Japan.
Top seed Prajnesh Gunneswaran, looking to break into the top-100 of world rankings, will play Daniel Altmaier of Germany in the second round after a bye in the first.
Manish Sureshkumar, the Khelo India Youth Games under-21 champion will open against Brydan Klein of Britain. Sasi Kumar Mukund has a bye in the first round and will play Sebastian Fanselow of Germany in the second.
Sidharth Rawat who lost the qualifying round in a draw of four, will partner Manish Sureshkumar in the doubles, and will play another wild card pair of Anirudh Chandrasekar and Abhinav Sanjeev Shanmugam.
Arjun Kadhe and Saketh Myneni form the third seeds, leaving Vijay Sundar Prashanth to partner Rubin Statham of New Zealand.
The Wimbledon junior doubles champions of 2015, Sumit Nagal and Nam Hoang Ly of Vietnam will join hands as wild cards, and will start against Ivan Nedelko and Alexander Zhurbin of Russia.
The results:
Singles (first round): Daniel Altmaier (Ger) bt Daniel Nguyen (US) 6-3, 6-2; Arjun Kadhe bt Ivan Nedelko (Rus) 6-4, 6-1; Blake Ellis (Aus) bt Siddharth Vishwakarma 6-2, 6-2; Andrew Harris (Aus) bt Aleksandar Vukic (Aus)6-4, 6-4; Vijay Sundar Prashanth bt Carlos Boluda-Purkiss (Esp) 6-2, 2-6, 6-2; Renta Tokuda (Jpn) bt Abhinav Sanjeev Shanmugam 6-3, 6-4; Sebastian Fanselow (Ger) bt Tung-Lin Wu (Tpe) 6-4, 7-5; Andrea Pellegrino (Ita) bt Rubin Statham (Nzl) 6-4, 6-4; Sumit Nagal bt David Peez Sanz (Esp) 6-3, 6-2; Antoine Escoffier (Fra) bt Evgeni Tiurnev (Rus) 6-2, 6-2; Nam Hoang Ly (Vie) bt Bradley Mousley (Aus) 6-7(4), 6-1, 6-3.
Qualifying singles (first and final round): Kaito Uesugi (Jpn) bt Suresh Dhakshineswar 6-1, 6-3; Alexander Zhurbin (Rus) bt Sidharth Rawat 3-6, 7-5, 6-3.
