Unheralded Tejasvi Rao fought for all his worth. But on this day, his best was just not enough against a fighting fit Vitali Reshetnikov, the fifth seed from Russia, who eventually made it to the quarterfinals of the Corporation Bank Manipal Open ITF $10000 men's tennis championship here at the Manipal University's Marena Sports Complex, on Wednesday.
The Russian won 6-4, 6-7(7), 7-5, in a match that went on for over three hours.
At the adjacent court, wild card Vinod Gowda, who had captured the attention of one and all with his fighting qualities on Tuesday, dished out an impressive show against third seed Niki Takuto of Japan. But the fight lasted just for the first set as the vastly superior Japanese won 7-6(4), 6-1.
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However the other Japanese, Koki Matsunago erred badly throughout his three-set encounter and did not survive to fight another day. Young Vikram Reddy scalped the seventh seed 6-4, 3-6, 7-6(2).
The results: Men's singles (Pre-quarterfinals): Ranjeet Virali Murugesan bt Sumeet Shinde 6-3, 6-3; Ankit Sachdeva bt Abhijeet Tiwari 4-6, 7-6(3), 7-5; Vijayant Malik bt Sudanwa Sitaram 6-2, 0-6, 6-2; Kaza Vinayak Sharma bt Saubrah Patil 6-1, 6-0; Vitali Reshetnikov (Rus) bt Tejasvi Rao 6-4, 6-7(7), 7-5; Vikram Reddy bt Koki Matsunaga 6-4, 3-6, 7-6(2); Rohan Gajjar bt P. Vignesh 6-2, 6-3; Niki Takuto (Jpn) bt Vinod Gowda 7-6(4), 6-1.