Vishnu, Yuki & Ashutosh moves up
(ITF Men's Futures, NEW DELHI)

WEDNESDAY 01, JULY 2009.

Vishnu Vardhan roared past Maniel Bains of Britain 6-3, 6-2 in the first round of the Central Bank $10,000 ITF men’s Futures tennis tournament at the DLTA Complex.

The second-seeded Vishnu fired 14 aces to outplay Maniel. Now he will be up against the crafty former champion Vijay Kannan who raced past Rohan Gide with equal ease in another first round encounter.

The champion of the last two tournaments held at the venue, the fourth-seeded Yuki Bhambri, was ruthless while dispatching Ashwin Kumar for the loss of just two games. Ashwin has a good serve and is quite sharp at the net, but the 16-year-old Yuki hardly gave him a chance.

Yuki will next meet qualifier Ashiwn Vijayaraghavan who beat fellow qualifier Mithun Murali in straight sets.

National champion V.M. Ranjeet defeated Aditya Madkekar with a solid all-round game. Though he conceded a mere five games in the match, the seventh-seeded Ranjeet was sweating profusely owing to the high humidity following a spell of rain earlier in the morning.

On the other hand,

Ashutosh Singh got past Navdeep Singh in a quality contest, while Vijay Sundar Prashanth put up a brave fight against the top-seeded Kento Takeuchi of Japan before going down in three sets.

Rohan Gajjar, Divij Sharan, Purav Raja and Rupesh Roy were the other Indians to reach the pre-quarterfinals. The third-seeded Hyun-Woo Nam of Korea and Takeuchi were the only foreigners left in the fray.

Results (first round): Kento Takeuchi (Jpn) bt Vijay Sundar Prashanth 3-6, 6-4, 6-1; Rohan Gajjar bt Ajay Selvaraj 6-1, 6-1; Hyun-Woo Nam (Kor) bt Bhishma Desai 6-1, 6-1; Ashutosh Singh bt Navdeep Singh 7-5, 6-3; V.M. Ranjeet bt Aditya Madkekar 6-2, 6-3; Divij Sharan bt Tal Eros (Isr) 6-3, 7-5; Purav Raja bt Kamala Kannan 6-2, 6-2; Ashwin Vijayaraghavan bt Mithun Murali 6-4, 6-3; Yuki Bhambri bt Ashwin Kumar (U.S.) 6-2, 6-0; Rupesh Roy bt Shahbaaz Khan 6-2, 6-3; Vijay Kannan bt Rohan Gide 6-3, 6-3; Vishnu Vardhan bt Maniel Bains (GBr) 6-3, 6-2.