Sinha, Nihalani cause upsets at Asian junior tennis meet

India's Nitin Kumar Sinha and Sabhyata Nihalani caused the first upsets at the HCL Asian Junior Tennis Championship today by knocking out sixth seeds J Otico of Philippines and M Sawangkaew of Thailand, respectively.
In the boys' first round, wild card Sinha ousted Otico 6-2 6-2, while in the corresponding round in the girls' section Sabhyata tripped Sawangkaew 4-6 6-4 7-6(2).
In other first round contests, boys' top seed Siddanth Banthia, back in action after an injury lay-off, disposed off T Macherla 6-0 6-2, while Sacchit Sharma rallied from a set down to oust Thailand's Tonkla Mulada 5-7 6-3 6-2.

Elsewhere, girls' top seed Mahek Jain, second seed Mihika Yadav and wild card Salsa Aher moved into the round of 16 with ease.
The tournament is being organised by the HCL in association with the Maharashtra State Lawn Tennis Association at the MSLTA school of tennis courts at the Shri Shiv Chhatrapati Sports Complex, Balewadi, here.
Other results: Boys singles (1st round): Ho Ray (TPE) bt Atharva Sharma(Ind) 6-0, 6-1; 5-Seita Watanabe (JPN) bt Dev Javian (Ind) 6-3, 6-1; 3-Taisei Ichikawa (JPN) bt Siddharth Thakran(Ind) 6-1, 6-2; 7-Dhruv Sunish(Ind) bt Ching Lam (HKG) 6-4, 6-4; Christian Chin (Mas) bt Srivatsa Ratakonda(Ind) 6-3, 6-3; 4-Ryuki Matsuda(JPN) bt Karan Srivastava (Ind) 6-7(4), 6-0, 6-1; 8-Palaphoom Kovapitukted(THA) bt Pariskhit Somani (Ind) 6-2, 6-2; Digvijay Singh (Ind) bt Mritunjay Badola (Ind) 7-5, 6-1; 2-James Trotter (JPN) bt Piyush Salekar(Ind)6-1, 6-1.

Girls: 1-Mahak Jain (Ind) bt Aesha Patel(USA) 6-1, 6-1; Salsa Aher (Ind) bt LI Xuanjin (CHN) 6-2, 6-2; Sabhyata Nihalani (Ind) bt 6-Mananchaya Sawangkaew(THA) 4-6, 6-4, 7-6(2); Sama Sathvika (Ind) bt Pratyusha Rachapudi(Ind) 6-2, 7-6(4); Funa Kozaki(JPN) bt Shivani Ingle (Ind) 6-0, 6-2; Punin Kovapitukted (THA) bt Nidhi Surapneni (Ind) 6-2, 6-0; 2-Mihika Yadav (Ind) bt Lasya Patnaik (Ind) 6-0, 6-1.