Nine Indians advance to second round of qualifying in Chennai Open

Chennai, Feb 8 (PTI) The Chennai Open ATP Challenger began brightly for India, as nine players, spearheaded by fourth seed Nitin Kumar Sinha, sailed through their first-round qualifying matches here on Sunday.

At the SDAT Tennis Stadium in Nungambakkam, Nitin had a comfortable outing against compatriot Oges Theyjo Jaya Prakash, winning 6-4, 6-1 in one hour and three minutes, while sixth seed Ishaque Eqbal registered a dominant 6-2, 6-0 victory over Great Britain’s Carl Holder in exactly one hour.

Sai Karteek Reddy Ganta, who entered the draw as an alternate, knocked out fifth seed Grigoriy Lomakin of Kazakhstan 3-6, 6-3, 6-4, while 20-year-old left-hander Aryan Lakshmanan eased past eighth seed Vadym Konovchuk of Ukraine 6-2, 6-1.

In the closest

match of the day, 12th seed Aditya Vishal Balsekar battled for close to three hours before edging out fellow Indian Lohithaksha Bathrinath 7-6, 4-6, 6-4.

Tenth seed Adil Kalyanpur also came through a three-set contest, defeating compatriot Atharva Sharma 7-5, 4-6, 6-1.

Third seed Timofei Derepasko avoided an upset as he beat Indian wildcard Aniketh Venkataraman 6-1, 6-4.

The top two seeds in the qualifying draw — India’s S.D. Prajwal Dev and Malaysia’s Mitsuki Wei Kang Leong — received byes into the final round of qualifying, which will be played on Monday.

A total of 12 players will compete for six qualifying spots in the 32-player main draw of the ATP Challenger 50 event.

Great Britain’s Jay Clarke is the top seed in the singles main draw, followed by Argentina’s Federico Agustin Gomez, Great Britain’s Oliver Crawford, and Ilia Simakin.

Seven Indian players, led by top-ranked Sumit Nagal, Karan Singh, and 18-year-old Manas Dhamne, are already in the main draw.

With four all-Indian final-round qualifying matches scheduled for Monday, India are set to have a strong presence, with the total number of Indian players in the main draw expected to rise to 11.

The tournament has a prize money of USD 63,000 (Rs 60 lakh). PTI AM AM AH AH