Third seed Ramkumar Ramanathan did not have to sweat much as he beat Thanapet Chanta of Thailand 6-4, 6-4 in the first round of the USD 25,000 (ITF India F4) men’s tennis tournament at the DLTA Complex on Wednesday.
In the pre-quarterfinals, Ramkumar will play Jang Yunseok of Korea, who eased past Siddhant Banthia for the loss of three games.
Siddharth Vishwakarma, Kabir Hans and Chirag Duhan were the other Indians to progress into the second round, and they all beat compatriots, Nitin Kumar Sinha, Yash Chaurasia and Raghav Jaisinghani.
Chirag was teased by lucky loser Raghav Jaisinghani before he asserted himself in the third set.
The focus was on the young Manas Dhamne and he did not disappoint as he stretched sixth seed Florent Bax to three sets, winning the second set at love.
A hamstring pull in the second game of the third set hampered Manas from being at his best in the final stretch, even though he did fight hard. He has been busy with his board exams and thus will skip the next event in Chandigarh.
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Eighth seed Sidharth Rawat also fought well against Wishaya Trongcharoenchaikul of Thailand but went down in three sets.
Siddharth Vishwakarma is easily a cut above the rest, and it will be interesting to see him play the Korean Woobin Shin in the next round.
The results:
Singles (first round): Kabir Hans bt Yash Chaurasia 6-3, 7-6(2); Grigory Shebekin bt Rishi Reddy 6-1, 3-6, 6-3; Florent Bax (Fra) bt Rishi Reddy 6-1, 3-6, 6-3; Fllorent Bax (Fra) bt Manass Dhamne 6-3, 0-6, 6-4; Chirag Duhan bt Raghav Jaisinghani 3-6, 6-4, 6-0; Yuichiro Inui (Jpn) bt Jagmeet Singh 6-0, 6-1; Wishaya Trongcharoenchaikul (Tha) bt Sidharth Rawat 6-0, 4-6, 6-2; Siddharth Vishwakarma bt Nitin Kumar Sinha 6-1, 6-4; Woobin Shin (Kor) bt Aditya Balssekar 6-4, 6-4; Jang Yunseok (Kor) bt Siddhant Banthia 6-1, 6-2; Ramkumar Ramanathan bt Thanapet Chanta (Tha) 6-4, 6-4; Nam Hoang Ly (Vie) bt Manish Ganesh 6-4, 6-2; Bang Shuo Yin (Tpe) bt Kazuma Kawachi (Jpn) 6-4, 6-3; Mitsuki Leong (Mas) bt Dev Javia 6-3, 6-4.
Doubles (pre-quarterfinals): Parikshit Somani & Manish Sureshkumar bt Adil Kalyanpur & Mitsuki Leong (Mas) 6-3, 6-3; Siddhant Banthia & Vishnu Vardhan bt Shivank Bhatnagar & Rohan Mehra 6-3, 6-3; Ramkumar Ramanathan & Khumoyun Sultanov (Uzb) bt Florent Bax (Fra) & Karan Singh 7-6(2), 6-2.
