NEW DELHI: He matched the top seed serve for serve and stroke for stroke, but J. Vishnu Vardhan was unable to win the points that mattered and lost 6-7(4), 7-5, 5-7 to Henry Adjei-Darko of Ghana in the first round of the $15,000 ITF Futures tennis tournament at the DLTA Complex here on Tuesday.

Against an opponent who was serving rockets and moving like a panther, Vishnu stood his ground and got broken only once in the entire match, in the 12th game of the decider.

Volleying error

In the first set, Vishnu, who underwent a three-week camp under Australian coach Chris Kachel, made a volleying error to lose momentum early in the tie-breaker. He broke Henry in the 11th game of the second set and served out the set in the next game.

"Vishnu played superbly. He is learning fast and this match against such a quality player should give him a lot of confidence though he lost it,'' said coach Gajendra Singh, who has been monitoring the progress of all the promising players.

Elsewhere, Aditya Madkekar had considerable reserves of energy, both physical and mental, as he tamed fifth-seeded Murad Inoyatov of Uzbekistan 6-3, 6-7(4), 6-1. The Mumbai player served big and played with imagination in the decider, after failing to drive home the advantage at 4-2 in the second set.

Uppal prevails

Vishaal Uppal saved three match points to subdue Shivang Mishra in the third set tie-breaker. The sixth-seeded Uppal too missed a match point but did not find it difficult to overcome the nervous youngster at the crunch.

Uppal will meet another Delhi boy Vivek Shokeen, who picked up his first ATP point for the season with a straightforward victory over qualifier Sumit Prakash Gupta.

Former National champion and wild card Aqeel Khan of Pakistan made light of his none too impressive ATP ranking of 1417 to outgun the second seed Alexey Kedriouk of Kazakhstan in a battle of wits. Aqeel survived five double faults in the last game to serve out the match against the 330th-ranked Kazakh who then smashed his racquet in disgust.

Nitin stretches Ghouse

Another former National champion Nitin Kirtane made an impressive return to the circuit, after having lost nearly a year following a road accident, by stretching Mustafa Ghouse to three sets. The Pune left-hander conceded that Ghouse played sharply and that he was happy to be playing in the first place.

A member of the Indian junior Davis Cup under-16 team, Sriram Balaji stretched his run in the tournament by defeating fellow qualifier Rohan Gide in straight sets. He meets Aqeel next.

The results (first round): Henry Adjei-Darko (Gha) bt J. Vishnu Vardhan 7-6(4), 5-7, 7-5; Mustafa Ghouse bt Nitin Kirtane 6-3, 1-6, 6-1; Vijay Paul (U.S.) bt Purav Raja 3-6, 6-1, 6-3; Sunil Kumar bt Tushar Liberhan 6-4, 6-3; Amir Weintraub (Isr) bt Kamala Kannan 7-5, 6-7(2), 6-2; Yaoki Ishii (Jpn) bt Divij Sharan 6-4, 3-6, 6-3; Aditya Madkekar bt Murad Inoyatov (Uzb) 6-3, 6-7(4), 6-1; Dmitri Makeyev (Kaz) bt Nishank Mishra 6-3, 6-4; Nick Monroe (U.S.) bt Yuda Shieh (Tpe) 6-2, 6-3; Vishaal Uppal bt Shivang Mishra 4-6, 6-4, 7-6(8); Vivek Shokeen bt Sumit Prakash Gupta 6-4, 6-1; Sriram Balaji bt Rohan Gide 7-5, 6-3; Aqeel Khan (Pak) bt Alexey Kedriouk (Kaz) 7-6(5), 1-6, 6-3.

© Copyright 2000 - 2009 The Hindu