<p>Shokeen has thus beaten teenager Malik for the second successive time, having beaten him in straight sets in an ITF tournament in Kolkata last year.<br /><br />Shokeen was erratic to start with and paid for it losing the first set, dropping his serve in the eighth game. <br /><br />The Delhi youngster’s exit looked imminent when he dropped his serve again in the fifth game of the second set, but he broke back in the eighth. <br /><br />A couple of errors from Malik in the tenth game set up a break point for Shokeen and he converted it rifling a forehand down the middle. In the decider, both the players kept up the pressure by serving well before Malik called for a medical time-out after the eighth game for cramps in his right leg. He hobbled his way to hold his serve 5-5.<br /><br />Malik limped to a triple break-point in the next game that twice went to deuce before Shokeen survived. <br /><br />He then broke Malik, who had difficulty to even to stand, to serve out the set and the match, lasting two hours and 20 minutes.<br /><br />At the adjacent court, wildcard entrants Maharashtra’s Ronak Manuja and Abhijeet Tiwari played to a standstill before the former won 7-5, 7-6(3).<br /><br />In the other first round singles matches, PC Vignesh rallied from a set down to beat national runner-up Srirambalaji Narayanaswamy 4-6, 6-3, 6-1 while Vikram Reddy defeated Uzbek Vaja Uzakov 6-3, 7-6(4).</p>
<p>Shokeen has thus beaten teenager Malik for the second successive time, having beaten him in straight sets in an ITF tournament in Kolkata last year.<br /><br />Shokeen was erratic to start with and paid for it losing the first set, dropping his serve in the eighth game. <br /><br />The Delhi youngster’s exit looked imminent when he dropped his serve again in the fifth game of the second set, but he broke back in the eighth. <br /><br />A couple of errors from Malik in the tenth game set up a break point for Shokeen and he converted it rifling a forehand down the middle. In the decider, both the players kept up the pressure by serving well before Malik called for a medical time-out after the eighth game for cramps in his right leg. He hobbled his way to hold his serve 5-5.<br /><br />Malik limped to a triple break-point in the next game that twice went to deuce before Shokeen survived. <br /><br />He then broke Malik, who had difficulty to even to stand, to serve out the set and the match, lasting two hours and 20 minutes.<br /><br />At the adjacent court, wildcard entrants Maharashtra’s Ronak Manuja and Abhijeet Tiwari played to a standstill before the former won 7-5, 7-6(3).<br /><br />In the other first round singles matches, PC Vignesh rallied from a set down to beat national runner-up Srirambalaji Narayanaswamy 4-6, 6-3, 6-1 while Vikram Reddy defeated Uzbek Vaja Uzakov 6-3, 7-6(4).</p>