With the exception of seventh seed Kaza Vinayak Sharma, who had to dig deep, all the seeds in action found safe passages to the second round of the MPTA ITF men’s Futures tennis championship here on Tuesday.
The highest-ranked man on court, No. 3 Vijayant Malik, took less than an hour to dispose off Ajai Selvaraj 6-2, 6-1.
He dictated play from the start. After a double break of serve in the first set, he opened up a 5-2 lead. Selvaraj served powerfully but was way too inconsistent with his first serves. Malik often returned wide of his opponent and opened up the court to plant winners.
Although Selvaraj ran down a few balls in the first, his defence fizzled out in the second.
He tried moving in towards the net on occasions to cut the rallies short but his approach shots were found wanting.
Malik upped his game and held serve with ease, going 4-0 up. He produced one final break of serve to wrap the second 6-1 and progress to the next round.
The results (Indians unless specified): First round: Toshihide Matsui (Jpn) bt Vignesh Veerabadran 6-2, 7-5; Karunuday Singh bt Anvit Bendre 6-4, 6-0; Vignesh Peranamallur bt Vigneshwaran Ramesh 6-1, 6-2; Jatin Dahiya bt Fariz Mohammed 4-6, 6-3, 6-2; Keith-Patrick Crowley bt Suraj Beniwal 6-1, 6-1; Abhijeet Tiwari bt Tushar Mandlekar 6-2, 6-2.
Sidharth Rawat bt Sagar Ahuja 6-0, 6-2; Garvit Batra bt Neeraj Elangovan 7-6(3), 6-3; Lakshit Sood bt Sasi Kumar Mukund 6-0, 4-6, 6-0; Vijayant Malik bt Ajai Selvaraj 6-2, 6-1; Kaza Vinayak Sharma bt Kunal Anand 2-6, 7-6(1), 6-4; Bumpei Sato (Jpn) bt U.M. Gugan Verma 6-0, 6-2; Ronak Manuja bt Chandril Sood 2-6, 7-6(3), 6-3.
Doubles: N. Sriram Balaji & Jeevan Nedunchezhiyan bt Sagar Manjanna & Vignesh Veerabadran 6-1, 6-1; Anvit Bendre & Tushar Mandlekar bt Jatin Dahiya & Shahbaaz Khan 7-5, 6-7(4), 10-4; Keith-Patrick Crowley & Arun Prakash Rajagopalan bt Rithvik Anand & Fahad Mohammed 6-3, 6-3; Fariz Mohammed & V. Peranamallur bt Sagar Ahuja & Saurabh Patil 6-3, 6-3.
