Mandya, Jan 9: Manish Ganesh not only warmed the hearts of the local tennis enthusiasts but also added one more ATP point to his tally as he breezed past Neeraj Yashpaul and entered the pre-quarterfinals of the Men’s Singles event in the PET ATP Mandya Open. In a first round match played at the PET Tennis Stadium here on Tuesday, the Mysore lad was a 6-1, 6-1 winner.
In the only other singles match held on the day, Siddharth Vishwakarma overcame Adil Kalyanpur 6-3, 6-1 to make it to the last 16.
The other Mysorean – SD Prajwal Dev, who is in the news for being selected for the Indian Davis Cup had to return dejected as his partner Nitin Kumar Sinha developed stomach cramps and the duo had to withdraw from the doubles pre-quarterfinal tie, despite leading 5-4 in the first set against Korean-Indian pair of Woobin Shin and Karan Singh. The eight seeded Prajwal plays against Korean Yunseok Jang a first round encounter tomorrow.
Earlier, the tournament was inaugurated in a simple yet heart-warming function with Dr. Kumar, District Commissioner, Mandya District lighting the lamp amongst the presence of other dignitaries including KR Dayanand, President Mandya District Lawn Tennis Association, Yathish N, Superintendent of Police, Mandya District and M Lakshminarayan, Hon. Life President, KSLTA amongst others.
The 23-year-old Neeraj began on a tentative note, barely managing to hold his serve in the first game. Manish, buoyed by the support from the home crowd played some brilliant tennis mixing aggression with caution and more often than not used the former trait. With the conditions suiting his game, the 22-year-old served with aplomb and came up with winners most of the time. Piercing through the defence of the left-hander, Manish didn’t give his opponent a semblance of a chance winning the next six game in a row.
In the second set, Manish broke his opponent’s serve in the second game to go 2-0 up but got broken in the 3rd game. However, that was the only blemish that he committed as the home crowd favourite won the next four games in a row to grab the set and the match at 6-1 in a match that lasted just 67 minutes.
Results Singles (Round of 32)
Siddharth Vishwakarma bt Adil Kalyanpur 6-3, 6-1; Manish Ganesh bt Neeraj Yashpaul 6-1, 6-1.
Doubles (Round of 16)
4-Parikshit Somani/Manish Sureshkumar bt Siddhant Banthia/Giles Hussey (GBR) 6-4, 6-3; Sai Karteek Reddy Ganta/Vishnu Vardhan bt Ishaque Eqbal/Faisal Qamar 6-4, 7-6 (8); Orel Kimhi (ISR) / Ofek Shimanov (ISR) bt Yash Chaurasia/Jagmeet Singh 6-2, 6-1; M Rifqi Fitriadi (INA)/Mitsuki Wei Kang Leong (MAS) bt Preetham Ganesh AS/Chandan Shivaraj 4-6, 6-0, 10-6; Thijmen Loof (NED)/Jelle Sels (NED) bt 3-Tsung-Hao Huang (TPE)/Kris Van Wyk (RSA) 6-4, 7-5; Woobin Shin (KOR)/Karan Singh bt 2-SD Prajwal Dev/Nitin Kumar Sinha 4-5 (retd); 1-Grigoriy Lomakin (KAZ)/David Pichler (AUT) bt Manish Ganesh/Rishi Reddy 6-3, 6-2; Yunseok Jang (KOR)/Nam Hoang Ly (VIE) bt Rishab Agarwal/Adil Kalyanpur 7-5, 7-6 (4).
