DAVANGERE, October 25, 2023 (Press Release)
All the seeded players advanced to the second round of ITF Davangere Open Men’s World Tennis Tour, raising the expectations of an exciting contest ahead in the US $15,000 event.
Leading the march of the seeds at the District Tennis Association, Davangere courts here on Wednesday was top seed Nick Chappell of the United States who quelled the challenge of wild card entrant Ranjeet Virali-Murugesan after a hard fought first set 7-6 (3), 6-0. Second seeded Bogdan Bobrav got a rude awakening when qualifier Tushar Madan took the first set under his nose 4-6. However, the lanky player set things right for himself and took the second set comfortably 6-2 and the third one even easier at 6-0.
The highest seeded Indian, third seeded Digvijay Pratap Singh had to dig deep to overcome qualifier Rohan Mehra in a thrilling three-setter 4-6, 6-3, 6-2 while fourth seed Florent Bax of France registered an easy 6-1, 6-2 victory over another wild card Ajay Malik.
However the most interesting match of the day was between winner of ITF Dharwad Open Ramkumar Ramanathan and Ishaque Eqbal which lasted for 2 hours and 32 minutes. The latter put up a spirited display of tennis and broke Ramkumar’s service in the fourth game to go 3-1 up. Ramkumar restored parity by the sixth game after which both opponents held their respective serve for the set to be decided via tie-breaker which Ramkumar won 7-4. The second set saw both the players break each other’s service once before the youngster took a 4-2 lead but could not hold on to the advantage, thanks to many unforced errors and a couple of good passing shots by the Davis Cupper who won the next three games to take a slender 5-4 lead and later broke Ishaque’s serve in the 12th game to take the set.
The third set saw Ishaque taking a 2-0 advantage but soon was down 2-3. With a couple of line calls going against him, Ramkumar’s vociferous comments on the court shook his opponent’s confidence as he took the decider 6-3 to enter the last 16.
Results
Singles Round of 32
2-Bogdan Bobrov bt Q-Tushar Madan 4-6, 6-2, 6-0; 1-Nick Chappell (USA) bt WC-Ranjeet Virali-Murugesan 7-6 (3), 6-0; Vishnu Vardhan bt Faisal Qamar 6-0, 6-1; Ramkumar Ramanathan bt Ishaque Eqbal 6-7 (4), 7-5, 6-3; 6-SD Prajwal Dev bt WC-Manish Ganesh 6-3, 6-0; 3-Digvijay Pratap Singh bt Rohan Mehra 4-6, 6-3, 6-2; 7-Rishab Agarwal bt Luke Sorensen (AUS) 7-6 (5), 6-4; Mitsuki Wei Kang Leong (MAS) bt Kabir Hans 7-5, 6-4; Manish Sureshkumar bt Q-Atharva Sharma 6-2, 6-1; Dev Javia bt Q-Raghav Jaisinghani 6-0, 6-3; Niki Kaliyanda Poonacha bt Nitin Kumar Sinha 6-3, 6-3; 4-Florent Bax (FRA) bt WC-Ajay Malik 6-1, 6-2; Q-Madhwin Kamath bt Q-Sai Karteek Reddy Ganta 4-6, 7-6 (10), 6-4; Q-Adil Kalyanpur Vs. Siddhanth Banthia 7-6 (4), 6-5 (interrupted, to be continued tomorrow).
