Fifth seed V.M. Ranjeet saved a match point to overcome Augusto Laranja of Brazil 6-4, 2-6, 7-5 in a first round match of the MCC-S.R. Subramaniam Memorial ITF men’s Futures tennis tournament at the TNTA courts here on Tuesday.
In a match that saw both players trying to outhit the other from the baseline it was Ranjeet who displayed better court craft. In the lone upset of the day, qualifier Vivek Shokeen beat eighth seed Arata Onozawa of Japan 2-6, 6-3, 6-3.
Earlier, fourth seed Thales Turini conceded his first round match to fellow Brazilian Caio Silva citing ankle sprain.
Laranja, ranked 122 places below the Indian at 633, broke Ranjeet in the seventh and ninth games to serve for the match in the decider. Serving 5-4, 40-30, Laranja pushed Ranjeet wide to his forehand and approached the net, but the latter unleashed a fine crosscourt pass which Laranja hit wide.
Thereafter, Ranjeet went on to break Laranja, and then again in the 12th game to enter the pre-quarterfinals.
Ranjeet will next face wild card entrant Mohd. Assri Merzuki of Malaysia.
France’s Tak Khunn Wang put paid to the hopes of newly-crowned National grasscourt champion Ramkumar Ramanathan 7-6(4), 6-2 in the opening round.
Wang — born to Chinese parents — retrieved as many balls as possible, and proved to be better than Ramkumar from the baseline.
Playing with a protected ranking — he suffered a wrist injury in May last year — Wang will next meet second seed Sriram Balaji.
The results (First round, Indians unless otherwise mentioned): Men’s singles : V.M. Ranjeet bt Augusto Laranja (Bra) 6-4, 2-6, 7-5; Tak Khunn Wang (Fra) bt Ramkumar Ramanathan 7-6(4), 6-2; Sidharth Rawat bt Patrick Ciorcila (Rou) 7-6(7), 6-2; Caio Silva (Bra) bt Thales Turini (Bra) 2-2 conceded; Jeevan Nedunchezhiyan bt Ting Yu Chuang (Tpe) 6-4, 6-2; Vivek Shokeen bt Arata Onozawa (Jpn) 2-6, 6-3, 6-3.
Giulio Torroni (Ita) bt P. Vignesh 6-3, 3-6, 6-4; Vijayant Malik bt Claudio Fortuna (Ita) 2-6, 6-3, 6-4; N. Vijay Sundar Prashanth bt Kunal Anand 7-6(3), 6-3; Tom Schonenberg (Ger) bt Ajai Selvaraj 6-2, 7-5; Mohd. Assri Merzuki (Mas) bt Katsushi Fukuda (Jpn) 6-4, 6-4; Mats Moraing (Ger) bt Chandril Sood 6-3, 7-5.
Doubles : Ting Yu Chuang & Chih-Jen Ho (Tpe) bt Filippo Leonardi & Giulio Torroni (Ita) 6-2, 5-7, 10-3; N. Sriram Balaji & Jeevan Nedunchezhiyan bt P. Vignesh & N. Vijay Sundar Prashanth 6-2, 6-1; Jul-Chen Hung (Tpe) & Peter Tomic (Srb) bt Sagar Manjanna & Rakshay Thakkar 7-5, 6-3.
