BENGALURU/STARNBERG, February 13, 2022
World No. 980 Nitin Kumar Sinha and N Sriram Balaji recorded upset victories to march into the final round of qualifying in the Bengaluru Open 2 ATP Challenger hard-court tournament that got underway at the KSLTA Stadium on Sunday.
After a first set 3-6 loss, the 22-year-old Sinha was down one match point in the second set tie-breaker against his fancied rival and ninth seed Kai Wehnelt of Germany. The Indian gave whatever he had and won the tie-breaker 11-9 which gave him the momentum as he clinched the decider 6-3 after two hours and 26 minutes.
In another super show, World No. 923 Balaji after losing the first set 4-6, against fifth seed Brazilian Gabriel Decamps, a quarterfinalist at this week’s Bengaluru Open 1, came back strongly to win the next two sets 6-1, 6-4 to advance to the next round after two hours and 13 minutes.
Sunday Results
Qualifying – First Round
1-Mukund Sasikumar (IND) bt Abhinav Shanmugam (IND) 6-2, 6-3; Manish Sureshkumar (IND) bt Rishi Reddy (IND) 6-1, 6-0; 2-Andrew Harris (AUS) bt SD Prajwal Dev (IND) 6-2 7-6 (4); WC-Digvijaypratap Singh (IND) bt 10-Thomas Fancutt (AUS) 4-6, 7-5, 6-2; 3-Rio Noguchi (JPN) bt WC- Suraj Prabodh (IND) 6-1, 7-6 (2); Nitin Kumar Sinha bt 9-Kai Wehnelt (GER) 3-6,7-7 (9), 6-3; 4-Bogdan Bobrov (RUS) bt Toshihide Matsui (JPN) 5-0 (retd); Dominik Palan (CZE) bt Alt-Alexander Erler (AUT) 7-6 (3), 4-6, 6-3; N Sriram Balaji (IND) bt 5-Gabriel Decamps (BRA) 4-6, 6-1, 6-4; Markos Kalovelonis (GRE) bt Jaraslov Pospisil (CZE) 6-4, 3-6, 6-3; 6-V Vladyslav Orlov (UKR) bt WC-Dheeraj Kodancha Srinivasan 6-0, 6-1; 7-Antoine Bellier (SUI) bt WC-Karan Singh (IND) 7-5, 6-3.
