Somdev enters third round

The sixth-seeded Indian scored an easy 6-1, 6-2 win over his Kiwi opponent in one hour and 12 minutes in the second round of the clay court Grand Slam’s qualifiers.

In the third round, Somdev will take on Frenchman Adrian Mannarino, who beat Ramon Delgado of Paraguay 6-2, 7-6 in his second round encounter.

It was a dominating performance by the top Indian as he took just 29 minutes to win the first set 6-1 after breaking his opponent’s serve in the fourth and sixth games.

The scoreline was level 1-1 after the second game but after that, it was Somdev all the way. The Indian broke the Kiwi to make the scoreline 3-1 and then repeated the same to surge to 5-1 before pocketing the first set in his serve. Somdev did not allow Turner to come back into the match as the Indian broke his opponent in the very first game of the second set to go up 2-0.

Both the players then held serve before Somdev broke his opponent in the seventh game to make it 5-2. The Indian then held on his serve to win the second set 6-2 and the game in one hour and 12 minutes. Somdev though had to survive some nervy moments in the second set as he won a couple of games after exchange of deuce points.

Somdev now remains the only hope for India in the men’s single as Prakash Amritraj had crashed out of the qualifying event with a 6-4, 2-6, 6-8 loss to Joao Souza of Brazil in the first round.