Mixed day for seeds

It was a mixed day for the seeds in the Power Pak ITF men’s Futures tennis tournament here on Tuesday.

While fourth seed Sasi Kumar Mukund and fifth seed Yannick Thivant of France lost in their respective opening round matches, sixth seed V.M. Ranjeet moved ahead.

Ranjeet defeated Jajbir Saran 6-4, 6-3, in a closely fought match in hot and gruelling conditions.

Good start

He started off well by going a break up in the second game and then raced to a 4-2 lead before he was broken back in the seventh game following a couple of backhand errors and a double-fault.

After a slow start, Saran got into his rhythm and played some strong ground strokes.

Breaking back

He looked to take the challenge to his opponent before Ranjeet broke back in the 10th game — converting his fourth break point of the game — to take the set 6-4.

In the second set, Saran appeared to suffer from pain in his lower back and had to call for the trainer a couple of times.

In the other match, Sumit Nagal breezed past Timur Khabibulin of Kazakhstan dropping only three games.

Nagal served well and backed it up with his strong forehand that kept the points short to seal a 6-2, 6-1 win.

The results:

Singles: First round: P. Vignesh bt Rishabdev Raman 6-4, 6-2; Sidharth Rawat bt Yannick Thivant (Fra) 6-4, 6-4; G. Prajnesh bt Manish Sureshkumar 6-0, 6-2.

V.M. Ranjeet bt Jajbir Saran 6-4, 6-3; Suraj R. Prabodh bt Hardeep Singh Sandhu 4-6, 6-2, 6-1; S.D. Prajwal Dev bt Lucan Renard (Swe) 7-5, 6-0.

Sumit Nagal bt Timur Khabibulin (Kaz) 6-2, 6-1; Isa Mammetgulyyev (Tkm) bt Sasi Kumar Mukund 6-4, 4-6, 6-4.

Doubles: First round: N. Prashanth & Jeevan Nedunchezhiyan bt Tejas Chaukulkar & Rashein Samuel 7-6(3), 6-4; Neeraj Elangovan & N. Poonacha 7-5, 6-1.

Lakshit Sood & Chandril Sood bt Hardeep Singh Sandhu & Stefan Vujic (Aus) 4-6, 6-1, 10-8.

Mohit Mayur & Kaza Vinayak Sharma bt Kunal Anand & Ronit Singh Bisht 6-0, 6-3.