Date:15/10/2008 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2008/10/15/stories/2008101553622100.htm

Sport - Tennis

Bopanna advances

New Delhi: It was a good day for Rohan Bopanna in the field as he won both the singles and doubles first round matches in the $1,25,000 ATP Challenger tournament at Olympic Tennis School in Tashkent on Tuesday.

The axed Davis Cupper set up a second round singles clash with top seed Lu Yen-Hsun after winning a tough match against Ilia Marchenko 7-6(6), 6-4 in a close to two hours contest of the hard court event.

Hsun of Chinese Taipei beat former World No. 1 junior Kristian Pless of Denmark 6-3, 6-4 in his opening round match.

Bopanna, who entered the singles main draw via qualifying competition, then joined hands with compatriot Purav Raja to beat Kazakhstan pair of Alexey Kedriouk and Yuri Schukin 6-1, 2-6,10-8 to enter the doubles quarterfinals.

They next face the top-seeded pair of Lukasz Kubot of Poland and Oliver Marach of Austria who defeated German pair of Denis Gremelmayr and Bjorn Phau 6-3, 6-4.

Meanwhile, Indian Davis Cupper Prakash Amritraj defeated Australian Robert Smeets to enter the second round of $50,000 Calabasas Challenger tournament in California in United States.

Amritraj, ranked 227 in ATP charts beat Smeets, placed 55 rungs above him, 6-4, 6-3 in the first round of the hard court event.

He next faces Peru’s Ivan Miranda who toppled fifth seed American Kevin Kim 7-5, 7-6 (2) in his first round encounter.

Another Indian in the fray in the singles competition is Davis Cupper Somdev Dev Varman. — PTI