Top-seed Chun-Hsin Tseng of Taipei and Australias Marc Polmans advanced to the Round of 16 of the Bengaluru Open 2023 with comprehensive wins, here on Monday.
There was some good news for local tennis fans as India's Pranjesh Gunneswaran qualified for the main draw by winning his final qualifying round match. But the focus was on Tseng, a World No 131, who did not have to break much sweat in warding off Frederico Silva of Portugal in straight sets 6-4, 6-4.
Tseng bagged the first set 6-4 with the help of a single break. The Taipei player was in full control of the proceedings, sending down 3 aces and winning a humongous 93 percent of first serves.
The second set started in a rather bizarre manner with both Tseng and Silva trading breaks in the first five games. Both the players committed a slew of unforced errors in that passage of the game.
Tseng made the decisive break in the 6th game of the second set after saving 6 breakpoints, which gave him a 4-2 lead. Tseng swelled the lead to 5-3 with another easy hold in the 8th game.
In the other Round of 32 match of the day, world number 284 Marc Polmans of Australia defeated sixth-seeded Francesco Maestrelli of Italy in a lop-sided match 6-1, 6-2 to enter the Round of 16.
Meanwhile, fifth seed Luca Nardi of Italy also advanced to the Round of 16 with a facile 6-4, 6-4 win over Miljan Zekic of Serbia.
Prajnesh qualifies, Sasikumar ousted
India had a mixed day in the second round of Qualifying matches on Monday (February 20). Prajnesh Gunneswaran breezed past Carlos Sanchez Jover of Spain 6-4, 6-3. M Sasikumar went down to Jason Jung in straight sets 5-7, 4-6.
Other results (qualifying):
Giovanni Perricard bt Yasutaka Uchiyama 7-5, 6-1; James McCabe bt Hiroki Moriya 6-1, 6-3; Nikola Milojevic bt Yunseong Chung 7-6 (2), 6-4; Albek Kachmazov bt Colin Sinclair 7-5, 6-2.