Ramkumar Ramanathan prevailed in a tense and excruciating battle against Australia's Marc Polmans while the country's top singles players Yuki Bhambri downed Kaichi Uchida to move to the second round of the KPIT-MSLTA Challenger here today.
In what turned out to be the match of the day, Ramkumar had to dig deep into his reserves before eking out a 6-7 (5) 7-6(5), 7-6(9) win in the opening round of the USD 50,000 hard court event.
In the two-hour-56 minutes match, Ramkumar could convert only one of the 12 breakpoints as the Australian, ranked 322, came up with a stiff resistance.
Fourth seed Ramkumar, ranked 150 in the world, next faces Brydan Klien, who dumped Pedro Martinez 6-2 6-3.
Third seed Yuki, who won the title here in 2015 and broke into top-100 for the first time, fought off Japanese qualifier Kaichi Uchida 6-2 7-5.
Yuki trailed 1-4 in the second set but recovered swiftly to turn the match in his favour.
Earlier, Sumit Nagal defeated Austria's Lucas Miedler 7- 6(1) 6-0 and 'lucky loser' N Prashant made best use of the opportunity to end the campaign of wild card Aryan Goveas 6-3 6-4 in an all-Indian clash.
Top seed Slovenian Blaz Kavcic got through his round against Geoffey Blancaneaux (France) 6-4 6-4 on an outside court while Spanish second seed A Menendez Maceiras showed qualifier Borna Gojo (Croatia) the door with a 6-2 6-3 win.
Results: Blaz Kavcic (SLO)[1] bt Geoffrey Blancaneaux (FRA) 6-4 6-4 Adrian Menendez-Maceiras (ESP) [2] bt [Q] Borna Gojo (CRO) 6-2 6-3 Yuki Bhambri (IND) [3] bt [Q] Kaichi Uchida (JPN) 6-2 7-5 Nikola Milojevic (SRB) [5] bt Ivan Nedelko (RUS)6-4 6-1 Sumit Nagal (IND)- Lucas Miedler (AUT) 7-6(1) 6-0 [LL] N Vijay Sundar Prashanth (IND) bt [WC] Aryan Goveas (IND) 6-3 6-4 [Q] Hugo Grenier (FRA) bt Tsung-Hua Yang (TPE) 6-7 6-0 6-0 Brydan Klein (GBR) bt Pedro Martinez (ESP) 6-2 6-3.
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