Unseeded Prajnesh Gunneswaran of India got the better of Jui-Chen Hung of Taipei in a close first round match singles in the MPTA ITF Men's ITF Futures tennis championship here today.
Prajnesh won the first set 6-4 and was leading 5-3 in the second when Jui-Chen Hung fought back with some excellent stroke play on both flanks to save four match points and level the score at 5-all. He went on to win the set 7-5.
In an interesting third set, both players held serves to take the set into the tie breaker. Prajnesh once again got into his own and ran away with a 5-1 lead and won it 7-2 to win the set and the match in 3.15 hours.
In other first round matches, Sriram Balaji, the top seed and second seeded, Jeevan Nedunchezhiyan, registered comfortable wins.
Earlier in the day, the final qualifying round was played in which Mohammed Fariz, Tushar Mandlekar, Anvit Bendre, Garvit Batra, Lakshit Sood, Suraj Beniwal, Sagar Ahuja and Vigneshwaran Ramesh qualified to make the main Draw.
The results: (India unless mentioned): Singles (qualifying): Fariz Mohammed bt Rithvik Anand 6-2, 7-6(2), Tushar Mandlekar bt Gagan Sharma 6-4, 4-6, 6-3, Anvit Bendre bt Rutger Cramer (Ger) 6-0, 6-3, Garvit Batra Bt Suraj R.Prabodh 6-3, 7-6 (3), Lakshit Sood bt Vikram naidu Srinivas 6-2, 6-1, Suraj Beniwal bt Sagar Manjanna 4-6, 6-4, 6-2, Sagar Ahuja bt Manav Kumar Chakma 6-0, 7-5, Vigneshwaran Ramesh bt Tarun Nath Surath 7-6 (6), 7-5, Tushar Mandlekar bt Fahad Mohammed 1-6, 6-3, 6-0.
Main Draw: N.Sriram Balaji bt Saurabh Patil 6-1, 6-2, Jeevan nedunchezhian bt Shahbaaz Khan 6-2, 6-3 and Prajnesh Gunneswaran bt Jui-Chen Hung (Taipei) 6-4, 5-7, 7-6 (2) and
Men Doubles: Toshihide Matsui (JPN) [3] / Bumpei Sato (JPN) Bt. Sasi Kumar Mukund / U M Gugan Verma 6-1, 6-2, Neeraj Elangovan / Ajai Selvaraj Bt. Chandril Sood / Lakshit Sood 4-6, 7-6(6), [10-8], Vinayak Sharma Kaza / Abhijeet Tiwari Bt. Kumara P Saradhi Adavelly / Garry Tokas 4-6, 6-4 [10-7], Kunal Anand / Ronak Manuja Bt. Suraj R Prabodh /Arpit Sharma 6-2, 6-2.
