Wild card Sanam Singh failed to rein in his unforced errors as he crashed out of the ONGC-GAIL Delhi Open even as Nidhi Chulmula and Prerna Bhambri also fell by the wayside in the women's ITF event, here today.
Sanam, playing against eight seed Ukrainian Illya Marchenko, lost his opening round 2-6 6-3 4-6 in little over two hours at the centre court of the R K Khanna Tennis stadium.
Talented left-hander Prajnesh Gunneswaran's tame 2-6 1-6 defeat against Briton Daniel Cox in the final qualifying round meant that there was no addition to the presence of Indians in the men's singles main draw.
Prajnesh was carrying a muscle tear in his stomach since the start of the qualifiers.
Meanwhile, in the women's event, India's both wild card entrants Nidhi and Shweta Rana along with Prerna Bhambri bowed out after straight set thrashings.
Nidhi lost 3-6 2-6 to Thailand's Peangtam Plipuech while Rana was hammered 2-6 0-6 by Chinese Qiang Wang.
Up against the top seed Japanese Erika Sema, Prerna lost 3-6 1-6 in her first round.
Sanam, ranked 352nd, struggled to contain his unforced errors in the first set and paid the price. He moved well on the court but lacked proper execution of his ground strokes today. He packed a lot of power in his strokes but could not keep them on the court.
Sanam did improve as the match progressed and Marchenko, ranked 161, too started faltering but in the end the Ukrainian saved two break chances in the crucial ninth game of the third set and broke the Indian in the next to clinch the issue.
"I started off slow and made too many errors. I found my rhythm in the second but it was tough to comeback against a quality player. Third set was neck and neck but I could not convert chances. I played a bad last game," Sanam said after the match.
"The court was slow, even after you grind your way, all these players have good speed. There is no excuse, I just played bad first set," Sanam, who will next play in ITF Futures in Chandigarh, added.
