Abhay Singh beat Japan’s Naoki Hayashi 3-0 in the men’s first round of the Chennai leg of the HCL-SRFI India tour, a PSA Challenger tour, at the ISA courts here on Sunday.
Velavan Senthilkumar, who’s suffering muscle strain under his feet, lost in straight games (3-0) to Ryosei Kobayashi of Japan.
Velavan said: “This is the first time I’ve played Ryosei. I’ve seen him play a couple of times. He was really good today. He was on point and I couldn’t do much with him. Personally, I couldn’t perform to my best because of my injury and consequently my lack of sufficient training. But hopefully I’ll get back.
“The situation was such that I could barely walk. Then, I started walking last week and trained for the past two days.”
Yash Fadte, who lost 3-1 to Kuwait’s Ammar Altamimi, said he was “accurate and tight” and that his “strategy worked out in the first game”, but “lost focus and was shaky” in the games that followed.
The results (round one, Indians unless mentioned): Tomotaka Endo (Jap) bt Robin Gadola (Sui) 8-11, 11-9, 11-8, 7-11, 11-9; Ryosei Kobayashi (Jap) bt Velavan Senthilkumar 11-3, 11-4, 11-9; Ammar Altamimi (Kuw) bt Yash Fadte 8-11, 11-5, 11-6, 11-5; Abhay Singh bt Naoki Hayashi (Jap) 11-8, 11-8, 12-10; Angus Gillams (Sco) bt Shady El Sherbiny (Egy) 11-4, 11-7, 11-3; Addeen Idrakie (Mal) bt Aadit Zaveri 13-11, 11-4, 11-4; Benjamin Aubert (Fra) bt Omar Elkattan (Egy) 7-11, 11-9, 5-11, 11-3, 11-8.
