India's Aryan Goveas and Manish Sureshkumar got a taste of Challenger-level tennis and made hasty first-round exits along with two seeded players in the KPIT-MSLTA Challenger here Monday.
Local wild card Goveas played well in patches before losing 3-6 4-6 to Canada's Brayden Schnur in 69 minutes at the centre court.
Schnur was part of his country's Davis Cup side when India lost the close World Group play-off tie 2-3 to the hosts in Edmonton in September last year. The two points India earned were for wins against Schnur, ranked 189.
It was all about flat, hard hitting for Goveas but it was not enough against a player like Schnur, who reached his maiden Challenger final early this year in Australia.
Goveas' serve was his biggest weapon and a few service return winners were a treat to watch but he lacked consistency. Tactically too, Schnur, who reached the semifinals last week in Bengaluru, was a superior player.
After trading breaks, Schnur broke the Indian one more time in the eighth game for a 5-3 lead in the opening set and served it in the next.
Schnur had found that Goveas' backhand was weak, so he tried most of his shots on that side. The feeble backhand returns from Goveas made it easy for Schnur to finish the points.
An unforced backhand error put Goveas down by two breakpoints in the fifth game of the second set. He saved the first but Schnur grabbed the break with a cross-court forehand winner.
Goveas had a chance to level it in the sixth but the Canadian saved two breakpoints. That one break stayed with Schnur, who served out the match in the 10th when the Indian hit a long return.
"It was just my fourth Challenger and the level is very different from the Futures. The balls come faster. But I played better from Bengaluru last week. I was feeling the ball nicely," said Goveas.
Asked about his flat hitting, Goveas said, "That's my game. I like attacking the opponent."
Goveas said the conditions were completely different from Bengaluru.
"It's hotter and heavier here. But you could control the ball while in Bengaluru which is on high altitude, it was difficult to control the ball."
Third seed and world number 132, Elias Ymer from Sweden, handed wild card entrant Manish a good tennis lesson with an easy 6-4 6-1 win. After being broken at love at 4-5 in the opening set, Manish lost steam.
Meanwhile, Spain's Nicola Kuhn knocked out seventh seed from Slovakia Andrej Martin 6-2 6-3 to make it to the second round of the USD 50,000 tournament.
Also moving to the next round with an upset win was Australia's Max Purcell, who ousted eighth seed Briton James Ward with a 6-4 6-4 scoreline.
In the doubles, local boy Arjun Kadhe and Saketh Myneni, the finalist from the last week, progressed to the quarterfinals with a crushing 6-1 6-1 win over the wild card pair of Dakshineshwar Suresh and Parikshit Somani.
India's top singles player, including the Bengaluru open winner Prajnesh Gunneswaran, Ramkumar Ramanathan, Saketh Myneni and Sumit Nagal, will be seen in action on Tuesday.
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