JOIN USMyneni knocks Murugesan out
The winner of ITF Mandya Open Saket Myneni, knocked out sixth-seeded Ranjeet Virali Murugesan 6-3, 6-4 in just over an hour to move into the second round of the Zuari Garden City Mysore Open US$ 10,000 ITF Men’s Futures tennis tournament at the MTC Courts here on Tuesday.
Myneni had defeated Murugesan at the semifinals at the Mandya Open. The Andhra lad, who sent down six aces, capitalised on Ranjeet’s inconsistentency and errors on big points. Saket broke Ranjeet in the eighth game of opening set to build a 5-3 lead. Serving for the set, Saket began with a double fault and trailed 15-30 before blasting three successive aces to wrap up the set at 6-3.
In the second set, both traded breaks in the opening two games but Myneni came back strongly to break his rival in the fifth game. Saket then held onto the advantage to wrap up the match.
Local lad Vinod Gowda outclassed Suraj R Prabodh 6-2, 6-2 in 53 minutes. Vinod after a tentative start was in his elements hitting fluent winners against an erratic Suraj, who also sought medical treatment for a leg muscle pull after losing the first set.
Results: Singles, first round (Prefix denotes seedings, Indian unless mentioned): 4-Jeevan Nedunchezhiyan bt Venkat Iyer 6-0, 6-2; Zach Itzstein (Aus) bt Sagar Manjanna 6-3, 6-3; Gavin Van Peperzeel (Aus) bt Kaza Vinayak Sharma 6-1, 6-2; Saketh Myneni bt 6-Ranjeet Virali Murugesan 6-3, 6-4; 8-Kittiphong Wachiramanowong (Tha) bt Ashwin Vijayragavan 6-3, 6-3; Neeraj Elangovan bt Viju George JR (USA) 6-4, 6-1; Vinod Gowda bt Suraj R Prabodh 6-2, 6-2; 1-Ti-Chen (Tpe) bt Shahbaaz Khan 6-2, 6-2; Ajai Selvaraj bt Saurabh Singh 6-1, 7-6 (7-3); 3-Vijayant Malik bt Sebastein Boltz (Fra) 6-3, 6-2; 5-Karan Rastogi bt Warit Sornbutnark (Tha) 6-4, 6-4; Bowen Ouyang (Chn) bt Scott Puodziunas (Aus) 6-3, 7-6 (7-3).