PUNE, November 20, 2018

Local favourite and Pune native Arjun Kadhe justified the wildcard given to him by the organisors as he upset second seeded Ramkumar Ramanathan, winning 6-3, 6-2 to enter the second round of the main draw at the KPIT MSLTA ATP Challenger organized by MSLTA and PMDTA and held at the Mhalunge-Balewadi Tennis Complex here today.

The World No. 370 saved both break points he faced, capitalizing on three of his own seven chances to record his biggest win of the year after one hour and three minutes. It was the first meeting for Kadhe and Ramanathan at the Challenger level, as both players have played more than two dozen times as juniors and ITF events in the past.

Kadhe looked solid from the start breaking the fast serving Ramkumar in the sixth game of the first set and in the fifth and seventh games in the second set. Next up for the 24-year-old will be Canada’s Brayden Schnur.

In another upset on Tuesday, former top 100 player Aleksandr Nedovyesov of Kazakhstan now ranked a lowly 186 and semif-inalist at Bengaluru last week knocked out fifth seeded Marc Polmans of Australia 6-2, 6-4.

21-year-old Indian Sasi Kumar Mukund also justified the wild card allotted to him as he as took out his compatriot Saketh Myneni 6-4, 7-6(1) in a one hour 28 minute thriller. Mukund, who was scheduled to play Saketh in the quarterfinals last week in Bengaluru, has to pull out during warm up due to a back spasm.

Winner of the Bengaluru Challenger and former finalist here Prajnesh Gunneswaran started the $50,000 hard-court event here, where he finished last week playing fluent tennis to stop Tsung-Hua Yang of Chinese Taipei 6-4, 6-4 in one hour and 31 minutes and become the third Indian player to make the second round.

Main Draw First Round

[WC] Arjun Kadhe (IND) bt [2] Ramkumar Ramanathan (IND) 6-3, 6-2;

[4] Prajnesh Gunneswaran (IND) bt Tsung-hua Yang (TPE)6-4, 6-4;

[WC] Sasi Kumar Mukund (IND) bt Saketh Myneni (IND)6-4, 7-6(1);

[1] Radu Albot (MDA) bt Sumit Nagal (IND)7-5, 6-2;

[Q] Lucas Gerch (GER) bt Collin Altamirano (USA) 6-3, 6-1;

[Q] Sebastian Fanselow (GER) bt Scott Griekspoor (NED) 3-6, 6-3, 6-4;

Frederico Ferreira Silva(POR) bt [LL] Benjamin Hassan (GER)6-1, 6-2;

Aleksandr Nedovyesov (KAZ) bt [5] Marc Polmans (AUS)6-2, 6-4;

Maverick Banes (AUS) bt [Q] Francesco Vilardo (ITA)3-6, 6-4, 6-1;

[Q] Ben Patael (ISR) bt Danilo Petrovic (SRB) 7-5, 6-4, 6-4;

Mens Doubles First Round

Mark Purcell/ Luke Saville bt Cem Ikel/ Danilo Petrovic 6-4,1-6,(16-14)

Andrej Martin/ Hans Podipnik- Castillo bt Collin Altamirano/ Maverick Barnes 6-4.7-5