PUNE, February 5, 2020

Ricardas Berankis of Lituania opened his title bid at the Tata Open Mahrashtra with a 7-6(2), 6-1 second-round win over Germany’s Cedrik-Marcel Stebe on Wednesday.

The No. 2 seed of the ATP 250 tournament capitalized on five of his 13 break point chances to prevail after one hour and 41 minutes.

A dominating performance in the second set by the Lithuanian, Ricardas Berankis 👊😎

He makes it to the next round of #TOM2020 🎾#AdvantagePune #TataOpenMaharashtra #ATPTour @berankisr pic.twitter.com/CKxbkzmgkP

— Tata Open Maharashtra (@MaharashtraOpen) February 5, 2020

Berankis will next take on Yuichi Sugita. The No. 5 seed from Japan received a walkover from Serbian veteran Viktor Troicki, who suffered from fever.

Also in the bottom of the singles draw, Ilya Ivashka knocked out No. 3 seed Stefano Travaglia of Italy, winning 7-6(5), 7-6(3) in exactly two hours of play to meet Jiri Vesely in the quarterfinals. The 26-year-old from the Czech Republic defeated No. 7 seeded Italian Salvatore Caruso 7-6(5), 6-4. The encounter lasted one hour and 50 minutes.

In first-round action, Taro Daniel, champion of the Burnie International ATP Challenger on Sunday, took out wild card Sasikumar Mukund 6-2, 7-6(7) in one hour and 40 minutes. He will next challenge sixth seed James Duckworth of Australia.

“Making a main draw debut in Pune is a very special for me. Playing here has given me experience of playing in front of the crowd. I got broken too early in the sets. I had a chance with five all. It’s not because of that one break point why I am sitting here. It was because of all the points I played,” said Mukund, who played in the qualifying round in the last two editions of India’s premier ATP 250 event, which is organised by Maharashtra State Lawn Tennis Association (MSLTA) in association with Government of Maharashtra.