ITF tournament

Karan Singh knocked out eighth seed Shuichi Sekiguchi of Japan 6-3, 6-4 in the first round of the $25,000 ITF men’s tennis tournament at the Ekaana Sports Complex on Wednesday.

Karan fired 11 aces and converted three of seven breakpoints to set up a pre-quarterfinal against Palaphoom Kovapitukted of Thailand.

In another match, Manish Sureshkumar fought his way past Niki Poonacha 7-6(9), 4-6, 6-2. Niki had led 5-2 in the first set and missed four set points in the tie-break. In the decider, it was a struggle for Niki as he saved five breakpoints for 2-4, and Manish pulled through.

The champion of the last tournament in Delhi, Evgeny Donskoy had a tough time against Digvijay Pratap Singh, but handled the crunch with ease from 4-5 in the third set.

The finalist of the last tournament, Yusuke Takahashi of Japan survived a scare to win in the third set tie-break against Abhinav Sanjeev Shanmugam. It was a commendable effort by Abhinav as he recovered from being down 0-6, 3-5, but missed a match point in the 12th game of the decider that denied him a fairy tale finish.

The results:

Singles (first round): Blake Ellis (Aus) bt Yash Chaurasia 6-3, 6-3; Siddharth vishwakarma bt Rushil Khosla 7-6(2), 6-3; Arthur Weber (Fra) bt madhwin Kamath 7-5, 6-2; Vladyslav Orlov (Ukr) bt Faisal Qamar 6-2, 7-5; Boris Butulija (Srb)bt Woobin Shin (Kor) 2-6, 6-4, 6-4; Yusuke Takahashi (Jpn) bt Abhinav Sanjeev Shanmugam 6-0, 5-7, 7-6(4); Karan Singh bt Shuichi Sekiguchi (Jpn) 6-3, 6-4; Palaphoom Kovapitukted (Tha) bt Raghav Jaisinghani 6-2, 6-3; Manish Sureshkumar bt Niki Poonacha 7-6(9), 4-6, 6-2; Evgeny Donskoy bt Digvijay Pratap Singh 6-2, 2-6, 7-5; Mukund Sasikumar bt Stijn Pel )Ned) 6-4, 6-2; Rishab Agarwal bt SD Prajwal Dev 6-4, 6-3; Sidharth Rawat bt Ishaque Eqbal 4-6, 6-2, 6-4; Oliver Crawford (USA) bt George Loffhagen (GBR) 2-6, 6-3, 6-3.

Doubles (pre-quarterfinals): Rithvik Bollipalli & Niki Poonacha bt Chandril Sood & Lakshit Sood 6-4, 6-1; Nitin Kumar Sinha 7 Arthur Weber (Fra) bt Lohithaksha Bathrinath & Mukund Sasikumar 6-4, 3-6, [10-7]; Blake Ellis (Aus) & Shuichi Sekiguchi (Jpn) bt Vladyslav Orlov (Ukr) & Kelsey Stevenson (Can) 7-6(4), 7-6(2); Ishaque Eqbal & Karan Singh bt Tushar Madan & Faisal Qamar 7-6(3), 6-4; Francis Casey Alcantara (Phi) & Pruchya Isaro (Tha) bt David Perez Sanz (Esp) & Eric Vanshelboim (Ukr) 6-2, 7-6(2); SD Prajwal Dev & Sai Karteek Reddy bt Yash Chaurasia & Lakshya Gupta 6-2, 4-6, [10-5]; Grigoriy Lomakin (Kaz) & Vishnu Vardhan bt Rushil Khosla & Hemant Kumar 6-1, 6-3.