National champion Vishnu Vardhan banked on his big-serving game for a 7-6(5), 6-7(6), 6-3 first-round win over Yannik Reuter of Belgium in the KPIT-MSLTA ATP Challenger, organised by MSLTA and played at the Shiv Chhatrapati Sports Complex, Balewadi.
The London Olympian, ranked 619 and returning to competitive tennis after a lay-off, justified the decision to hand him a wildcard. Vishnu Vardhan served 25 aces to get past the Belgian, ranked 339, in two hours, 35 minutes. Richard Becker of Germany was the second player to advance.
The Indian was up 5-2 in the first set before losing momentum. The Belgian drew level and won the tie-break. Both players won games on serve in the second set to force another tie-break.
The former edged ahead in the third and held on to emerge victorious.
In the doubles event, fourth-seeded pair of Adrian Menendez-Maceiras (Spain) & Aleksandr Nedovyesov (Kazakhstan) was stunned by Alexander Kudryatsev (Russia) & Richard Becker (Germany), the latter winning 6-4, 4-6, 10-7.
The results:
Singles (first round): Vishnu Vardhan (Ind) bt Yannik Reuter (Bel) 7-6(5), 6-7(6), 6-3; Richard Becker (Ger) bt Yasutaka Uchiyama (Jpn) 7-5, 6-1.
Doubles (first round): Somdev Devvarman & N. Vijay Sundar Prashanth bt V.M. Ranjeet & Shriram Balaji 6-2, 6-3; Sonchai Ratiwatana & Sonchat Ratiwatana (Tha) bt Hiroki Moriya (Jpn) & Danai Udomchoke (Tha) 6-4, 6-3; Alexander Kurdryavtsev (Rus) & Richard Becker (Ger) bt 4-Adrian Menendez-Maceiras (Esp) & Aleksandr Nedovyesov (Kaz) 6-4, 4-6, 10-7; Liang-Chi Huang & Chen Ti (Tpe) bt Hsin-Han Lee (Tpe) & Yuichi Sugita (Jpn) 6-3, 7-6(3).