R. Ramkumar came through a tough two-setter against Vishnu Vardhan 7-5, 7-6(1) in the first round of the MCC-S.R. Subramaniam Memorial ITF Futures tennis championship here on Tuesday.
There was little to choose between the two in the first set. Holds of serve were straightforward for both. However with Vishnu serving at 5-6, Ramkumar upped his game.
He fired two winners and when his opponent’s backhand slice went wide he was presented with three set points. He took it on the second when Vishnu netted a volley.
Vishnu started well in the second set, breaking Ramkumar’s serve to go 2-1 up. But he was broken right back and the game again settled into the sort of rhythm witnessed for large parts of the first set.
It changed when Vishnu, serving at 15-30, 5-6, hit a bad approach shot. It was duly finished off by Ramkumar with a fine pass, to earn two match points. Vishnu served two aces and managed to stretch it to a tiebreak. However, his fight ended when he succumbed 7-1 in the tiebreak.
For Ramkumar, the only cause for concern will be his low first serve percentage.
The results:
First round: Singles: R. Ramkumar bt Vishnu Vardhan 7-5, 7-6(1); Enrique Lopez-Perez (Esp) bt Mohit Mayur 6-2, 6-3; V.M. Ranjeet bt Giorgio Portaluri (Ita) 6-2, 7-6(1); Sriram Balaji bt Lucas Renard (Swe) 7-6(5), 6-3; Ronak Manuja bt Chandril Sood 7-6(5), 4-6, 6-4; Vincent van den Honert (Ned) bt Vignesh Veerabhadran 6-3, 6-3; Sergey Shipilov (Uzb) bt Abhijeet Tiwari 6-2, 6-4; Vignesh Peranamallur bt Suraj Prabodh 6-1, 6-4; Ronit Singh Bisht bt Kaza Vinayak Sharma 5-7, 7-6(8), 7-5; Sanam Singh bt Akash Wagh 6-3, 6-3; Sarvar Ikramov (Uzb) bt Shotaro Goto (Jpn) 6-7(3), 6-3, 6-3.
Doubles: Jannis Liniger (Sui) & Vijay Sundar Prashanth bt Giorgio Portaluri (Ita) & Lucas Renard 6-1, 7-6(5); R. Arun Prakash & Ramkumar bt Mohit Mayur & Sasi Kumar 6-4, 7-6(1); Jatin Dahiya & Vijayant Malik bt Andre Gaspar Murta (Por) & Andrew (Can) 6-3, 6-3.
