N. Sriram Balaji, the second seed, defeated Matias Castro of Argentina 6-3, 6-3 in the first round of MCC-S.R. Subramaniam Memorial ITF Futures tennis tournament at MCC courts here on Monday.
Later, sixth seeded Karunuday Singh overcame Chandril Sood 7-6(3), 6-3 in an hour and 42 minutes to join Balaji in the pre-quarterfinals.
Castro, unseeded here, and on his first visit to India, is ranked 812 places below Balaji at 1184, but he had a head-start by breaking the Indian in the first game, and then held his own in the next to take a 2-0 lead.
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Balaji regained his touch and won with huge serves and deft volleys. He broke the Argentine’s serve in the eighth game with a couple of good shots.
Balaji closed out the first set with an ace. Castro had a chance to provide a better fight in the second set when he had a break point in the eighth game, but he netted an easy volley. From there on, Balaji raced ahead.
The contest between Karunuday and Chandril, too, was a dull affair. After an evenly-fought first set which Karunuday won, the second saw the sixth seed canter to victory. Trailing 2-3 in the second set, Chandril took a medical time out for a back problem, and when he returned, he wasn’t the same player.
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The results (First round): Singles: N. Sriram Balaji bt Matias Castro (Arg) 6-3, 6-3; Sasi Kumar Mukund bt Akash Wagh 6-3, 6-2; Karunuday Singh bt Chandril Sood 7-6(3), 6-3; Elwin Antony bt Lakshit Sood 6-4, 7-5; Sidharth Rawat bt Fahad Mohammed 6-3, 6-0.
Doubles: N. Sriram Balaji & V.M. Ranjeet bt Loic Perret (Sui) & R. Suraj Prabodh 6-1, 6-2; Kunal Anand & Ronit Singh Bisht bt Thomas Brechemier & Yannick Thivant (Fra) 7-5, 7-6(4); Anvit Bendre & Akash Wagh bt Mohit Mayur & Kaza Vinayak Sharma 6-2, 6-4; Christopher Marquis & Karunuday Singh bt A. Shanmugam Vakati & Udayakumar Reddy 6-1, 6-4; Sagar Ahuja & Jatin Dahiya bt Antoine-MichelAlexeev & Jessy Kalambay (Sui) 6-4, 3-6(6); P. Vignesh & Poonacha Kaliyanda bt Sasi Kumar Mukund & Manish Sureshkumar 6-2, 6-3; Vijay Sundar Prashanth & Jeevan Nedunchezhiyan bt Ivan Gakhov & Mikhail Korovin (Rus) 6-4, 3-6(6).