Prajnesh Gunneswaran, the lone Indian surviving in the singles main draw, quelled a late challenge from Zhe Li to book a quarter-final berth at the Ningbo Challenger on Wednesday.
After wining the first set 6-3, the Chennai southpaw struggled to focus and lost the next one 2-6. But Gunneswaran regrouped to win a nervy tie-breaker against his Chinese opponent in the deciding set.
“I played a good first set but started badly in the second. I was not focussed. The third set was very close. I had the break but was unlucky to lose that game at 5-4. There was net chord on one point and my string broke on another, so I was 0-30. But I played a very good tie-break. I was aggressive and there were no errors,” said Prajnesh after the match.
Prajnesh’s compatriots Ramkumar Ramanathan, Sumit Nagal and Saketh Myneni had all exited in the first round.
He next faces Yunseong Chung, who knocked out Ramkumar in the opening round.
Ramkumar and Nagal crashed out of the men’s doubles, too, following their first round defeat but the pair of Myneni and N Sriram Balaji advanced to the quarter-finals.
Balaji and Myneni outplayed Hiroki Moriya and Rubin Statham 6-0, 6-3 in the first round.
Yuki suffers defeat on comeback, out of European Open
Yuki Bhambri’s comeback to the ATP circuit after recovering from a knee injury didn’t go well as he suffered a first-round defeat at the European Open in Antwerp, Belgium.
Playing his first match after the US Open in August, Yuki lost 6-7(6), 7-5, 1-6 to Italian Salvatore Caruso in the Euro 686,080 hard court tournament.
Yuki was a break up, serving for the opening set but lost his serve and, eventually, the set. After drawing parity, Yuki twice lost his serve to fall behind 0-3 in the decisive set and never recovered.
Other results
Top-seeded doubles pair at the Ismaning Challenger in Denmark, Purav Raja and Antonio Šančić of Croatia reached the quarter-finals with a 6-4, 7-6 victory over Andre Begemann of Germany and Filip Polášek of Slovakia. Raja and Šančić will face Tomislav Brkić and Ante Pavić next.
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