ATP Chennai Challenger: Prajwal through to final round of qualifying

CHENNAI: India’s SD Prajwal Dev was the only Indian to make it out of the first round of qualifying at the Chennai Open ATP Challenger on Sunday after scoring a straight sets win over fellow compatriot Abhinav Shanmugam.

Prajwal, seeded 10th in the qualifying draw, won 6-3, 7-5 in one hour and 39 minutes to set up a second-round clash against fourth seed Vadym Ursu, who defeated India’s Manish Sureshkumar 7-6 (6), 6-3 in one hour and 49 minutes. Ursu was joined by the top three seeds – Eric Vanshelboim, Bogdan Bobrov and Kris Van Wyk - in the second and final round of qualifying.

Rethin Pranav India’s no 1 Junior and a promising player made his debut in an ATP Challenger, putting up a show of fluent stroke play before going down to Evgeny Karlovshkiy of Russia 4-6,6-7. Evegny had to save four set points in the second set before winning the match 7-4 in the tie break.

The final round of the qualifying draw will take place on Monday February 5th along with the first batch of main draw matches at the SDAT Tennis Stadium in Chennai.

Chennai Open ATP Challenger results

First Round of Singles Qualifying

• Eric Vanshelboim (UKR) def. Ray Ho (TPE) 6-3. 6-3

• Bogdan Bobrov def. Ishaque Eqbal (IND) 6-4, 6-4

• Kris Van Wyk (RSA) def. Adil Kalyanpur (IND) 6-1, 6-4

• Vadym Ursu (UKR) def. Manish Sureshkumar (IND) 7-6 (6), 6-3

• Jonas Forejtek (CZE) def. Siddharth Vishwakarma (IND) 6-2, 6-2

• Yurii Dzhavakian (UKR) def. Bharath Nishok Kumaran (IND) 6-3, 6-1

• Olaf Pieczkowski (POL) def. Nitin Kumar Sinha (IND) 6-3, 6-1

• Alexey Zakharov def. (8) Constantin Bittoun Kouzmine (FRA) 6-0, 6-0

• Evgeny Karlovskiy def. Rethin Pranav Senthil Kumar (IND) 6-4, 7-6 (4)

• S D Prajwal Dev (IND) def. Abhinav Sanjeev Shanmugam (IND) 6-3, 7-5

• Luca Castelnuovo (SUI) def. Karan Singh (IND) 6-4, 7-6 (4)

• Enzo Wallart (FRA) def, Lohithaksha Bathrinath (IND) 7-6 (2), 6-2