Field day for top seeds

It was a field day for the top seeds at the $10,000 ITF Dharwad Open Futures tennis championship, with the favourites coasting into the quarterfinals with facile victories at Dharwad on Wednesday.

Top seed Sriram Balaji entered the last eight after his opponent Siddharth Rawat threw in the towel due to a wrist injury, while Sanam Singh and V.M. Ranjeet, the second and third seeds respectively, also progressed to the next round with comfortable victories.

The only upset of the day belonged to Ramkumar Ramanathan, when an ankle injury forced his opponent and fourth seed Vijayant Malik to concede the match in the second set.

The results: Singles (pre-quarterfinals): Sanam Singh bt Vinayak Sharma 6-2, 6-3; V.M. Ranjeet bt Lakshit Sood 6-3, 6-4; Arjun Khade bt Luca Margaroli (Sui) 6-2, 7-5; N. Sriram Balaji bt Siddarth Rawat 6-4, 2-0 (conceded); Ramkumar Ramanathan bt V. Malik 7-5, 3-1 (conceded); Torsten Wietoska (Ger) bt Jeroen Benard (Ned) 6-2, 6-0; N. Vijay Sundar Prashanth bt P. Vignesh 6-3, 6-3; Colin Van Beem (Ned) bt Sergei Krotiouk (Rus) 6-3, 5-7(6), 6-2.