BENGALURU/STARNBERG, February 15, 2022
World No. 946 Markos Kalovelonis of Greece headlined Tuesday’s first-round action at the Bengaluru Open 2 by knocking out last week’s champion and No. 8 seed of the ATP Challenger 80 hard-court tournament Chun-hsin Tseng from Chinese Taipei 6-2, 6-2.
The 27-year-old qualifier capitalized on five of his six break-point chances and won 62 per cent of the total points played to prevail after 62 minutes.
“Today was one of the best matches of my life. His game suits me a little bit and my tactics worked,” said Kalovelonis afterwards. “Since I most play in doubles and got a chance in the singles qualifiers here, there was no pressure. I just play to enjoy myself and that is what I did today,” added the Marousi native, who has 20 ITF Pro Circuit doubles titles to his credit and is a part of the Greece Davis Cup and ATP Cup team.
“He was always attacking and I couldn’t get my rhythm. He served very well and attacked my second serves very well,” said the 20-year-old Tseng.
Kalovelonis broke his rival’s serve in the first and fifth game to completely dominate the first set. The second set saw both breaking each other’s serve in the first two games before the Greek attacked the net often, not allowing Tseng to settle. “I had watched him last week and he likes long rallies and that is why I went for the attack,” said Kalovelonis who broke Tseng’s serve in the 5th and 7th game and served out to emerge victorious.
Greece’s @MarkKalovelonis stunned the Bengaluru Open 1 winner Chun-hsin Tseng of Chinese-Taipei with a quickfire 6-2, 6-2 victory and entered the pre-quarterfinals of the Bengaluru Open 2 ATP Challenger. Keep an eye on this space for more! pic.twitter.com/ZXCIXlt0UV
— Bengaluru Tennis Open (@BlrTennisOpen) February 15, 2022
A total of five seeded players bit the dust in their opening encounters on Tuesday. While Swiss Antoine Bellier upset fourth seed Federico Gaio of Italy in straight sets, 6-4, 6-3, Andrey Kuznetsov of Russia won a long-fought battle against fifth-seeded Czech Vit Kopriva 6-1, 1-6, 6-3.
Seventh seed and local favourite Ramkumar Ramanathan lost to unseeded Frenchman Mathias Bourgue 6-4, 3-6, 2-6. Last week’s Bengaluru Open 1 runner-up Borna Gojo of Croatia survived a scare against Czech qualifier Dominik Palan before prevailing 4-6, 6-3, 6-4.
Tuesday Results
Singles – First Round
Andrey Kuznetsov (RUS) bt 5-Vit Kopriva (CZE) 6-2, 1-6, 6-3; Mathias Bourgue (FRA) bt 7-Ramkumar Ramanathan (IND) 4-6, 6-3, 6-2; Borna Gojo (CRO) bt Q-Dominik Palan (CZE) 4-6, 6-3, 6-4; Johan Nikles (SUI) bt Raul Brancaccio (ITA) 6-7 (1), 6-1, 7-5; Q-Antoine Bellier (SUI) bt 4-Federico Gaio (ITA) 6-4, 6-3; 3-Enzo Couacaud (FRA) bt Q-Nitin Kumar Sinha (IND) 6-1, 6-1; Alexandre Muller (FRA) bt Elliot Benchetrit (MAR) 7-5, 6-4; Jay Clarke (GBR) bt Q-Andrew Harris (AUS) 7-6 (7), 7-6 (9); WC-Sidharth Rawat (IND) bt Q-Mukund Sasikumar (IND) 6-4, 6-4; Q-Markos Kalovelonis (GRE) bt 8-Chun-hsin Tseng (TPE) 6-2, 6-2.
Doubles – Round of 16
4-N Sriram Balaji (IND)/ Vishnu Vardhan (IND) bt WC-Suraj Prabodh (IND)/Rishi Reddy (IND) 6-4, 6-2; Vladyslav Orlov (UKR)/Kai Wehnelt (GER) bt Vit Kopriva (CZE)/Jaroslav Pospisil (CZE) 7-5, 6-4; 2-Jeevan Nedunchezhiyan (IND)/Purav Raja (IND) bt Thomas Fancutt (AUS)/Jason Kubler (AUS) 6-3, 7-5.
