Fifth seeded Vijay Sundar Prashanth overcame a spirited Ashwin Vijayragavan in three tough sets 7-6(1), 5-7, 6-2 in the first round of the Indian Oil Servo ITF men’s Futures tennis championships here on Tuesday.
In a match that witnessed fortunes swing either way, it was Ashwin who took the initial lead by going a break up in the first set. He, however, could not capitalise as Vijay Sundar rallied to stretch the set to a tie break and eventually won it by seven points to one.
Even as both players traded breaks early in the second set, it was not until the 10th game that Ashwin sensed an opening. Down 4-5 and 15-30, Vijay Sundar was under pressure, but two powerful forehand winners kept him in the set. But in the ensuing two games, Ashwin held his serve and broke Vijay Sundar’s to take the match into the decider.
But with the heat unrelenting, Ashwin showed signs of fatigue as he fell behind 0-3 in the third. Though he broke back once, his first serves rarely clicked. Serving for the match at 5-2, Vijay Sundar pounded three aces and hit a forehand winner to emerge victorious.
Earlier in the day, top seed V.M. Ranjeet was safely through to the second round after he beat Perakiat Siriluethaiwattana of Thailand in straight sets.
The results (Indians unless stated): First round: Hyun-Woo Nam (Kor) bt Chih-Jen Ho (Tpe) 6-1, 6-1; V.M. Ranjeet bt Perakiat Siriluethaiwattana (Tha) 7-5, 6-3; Weerapat Doakmaiklee (Tha) bt Vivek Shokeen 6-4, 7-6(6); Vijay Sundar Prashanth bt Ashwin Vijayragavan 7-6(1), 5-7, 6-2; Suk-Young Jeong (Kor) bt Kunal Anand 6-1, 6-0; Chieh-Fu Wang (Tpe) bt Abhijeet Tiwari 4-6, 6-3, 6-2; Chandril Sood bt Tejas Chaukulkar 6-2, 6-3; Bastien Favier (Fra) bt Rishabdev Raman 6-3, 6-4; Saketh Myneni bt Ronit Singh Bisht 6-1, 6-1; Elbert Sie (Ina) bt Lakshit Sood 6-0, 6-0; Antoine Escoffier (Fra) bt Arjun Kadhe 6-3, 6-3; Kaza Vinayak Sharma bt Ajai Selvaraj 6-2, 6-4; Karunuday Singh bt Zach Itzstein (Aus) 6-4, 6-7(6), 7-5.
