Dharwad ITF Tennis: Suraj, Madhwin score upset wins to enter main draw

DHARWAD: Karnataka’s Suraj Prabodh and Gujarat’s Madhwin Kamath scored upset victories. knocking out fancied players to make it to the main draw of the ITF Dharwad Men’s World Tennis Tour 2023 on Tuesday.

While Madhwin staged a superb comeback win against former Indian Davis Cupper and Asian Games medalist Vishnu Vardhan 5-7, 6-3, 10-5, Suraj sidelined 14th seed Yash Yadav in straight sets 6-4, 6-1 at the Dharwad District Lawn Tennis Association courts.

In the only two singles matches played on the opening day of the main draw of the US $ 25,000 event that started on Tuesday, third seed Digvijay Pratap Singh overcame a fighting Siddhanth Bhatia 6-2, 7-6(7) while Nitin Kumar Sinha sent wild card entrant Rishi Reddy home with a facile 6-2, 6-2 victory.

In the doubles matches, the Indian pair of Sai Karteek Reddy Ganta and Manish Sureshkumar upset second seeds Bogdan Bobrov and Nick Chappell of the USA, 6-3, 3-6, 10-5.

After bad light and mild rain had stopped the match between Madhwin and Vishnu with the scores tied at 4-4 in the first set on Monday, Vishnu, capitalising on an error-prone Madhwin won the first set 7-5.

However, the 21-year-old from Gujarat staged a superb comeback winning the second set with breaks in the 4th and 6th games and took the match into the decider.

Vishnu faltered with his serve and returns alike and conceded the advantage after leading 4-2 and finally succumbed to the youngster.

Results:

(Indians unless mentioned, seedings in the prefix)

Men’s Singles Round of 32:

3-Digvijay Pratap Singh bt Siddhant Banthia 6-2, 7-6(7); Nitin Kumar Sinha bt WC-Rishi Reddy 6-2, 6-2.

Doubles Round of 16:

Manish Ganesh/Suraj R Prabodh bt Deepak Anantharamu/Rashein Samuel 7-6 (3), 6-3; Rishab Agarwal/Florent Bax (FRA) bt Adil Kalyanpur/Ryotaro Matsumura (JPN) 6-4, 5-7, 10-4; Ishaque Eqbal/ Faisal Qamar bt Chirag Duhan/Dev Javia 6-3, 6-7 (4), 10-4; Jake Bhangdia (USA) /Raghav Jaisinghani bt Tushar Madan/ Jagmeet Singh 6-3, 6-4; 4-Siddhant Banthia /Vishnu Vardhan bt Thijmen Loof (NED)/Stijn Pel (NED) 6-4, 6-1; 3-SD Prajwal Dev/Nitin Kumar Sinha bt Yash Chaurasia/Atharva Sharma 6-1, 6-2; Sai Karteek Reddy Ganta/ Manish Sureshkumar bt 2-Bogdan Bobrov/Nick Chappell (USA) 6-3, 3-6, 10-5; 1-Purav Raja/Ramkumar Ramanathan Vs. Digvijay Pratap Singh/Karan Singh 6-7 (7) (postponed due to bad light).

Final Qualifying Round:

11-Madhwin Kamath bt 1-Vishnu Vardhan 5-7, 6-3, 10-5; Suraj R Prabodh bt 14-Yash Yadav 6-4, 6-1; Abhinav Sanjeev Shanmugam bt Tushar Madan 6-3, 6-3; 5-Ranjeet Virali-Murugesan bt 10-Kabir Hans 4-6, 6-3, 10-6.