Bengaluru Open: Leander Paes enters semis; Indian challenge ends in singles

Bengaluru: The Indian challenge in the singles event of the ongoing Bengaluru Open ended without much ado with all the six players losing their respective pre-quarterfinal matches with the top-ranked Indians Prajnesh Gunneswaran and Sumit Nagal leading the outward march.

While the seventh seed Prajnesh threw in the towel to a lowly ranked Benjamin Bonzi of France 6-7 (5), 0-6, eighth seed Sumit crashed out losing to 11th seed Blaz Rola of Slovenia 3-6, 3-6 on Thursday (February 13).

Also read: Leander Paes enthralls crowd

The other Indians to be shown the door were 17th seed Ramkumar Ramanathan, Saketh Myneni, wild card entrant Niki Poonacha and Sidharth Rawat, with only Myneni’s match being stretched to three sets.

There was some cheer in the Indian camp with Indian tennis legend Leander Paes who is in his last year of professional tennis calling it “The Last Roar”, entering the semi-final with Australian partner Matthew Abden who combined to beat third seeds and champions of an ATP event last week Andre Goransson of Sweden and Christopher Rungkat of Indonesia 7-5, 0-6, 10-7.

Earlier, Myneni had combined with Matt Reid of Australia and won a hard fought battle against the top seeded pair of Cheng-Peng Hsieh of Taipei and Denys Molchanov of Ukraine 3-6, 6-4, 10-8 to enter the last four along with Purav Raja and Ramkumar Ramanathan.

The all Indian pair recorded a straight set 6-4, 6-4 victory over the Portugal-Serbian pair of Frederico Silva and Nikola Milojevic.

The Prajnesh-Bonzi match was expected to be a one-sided affair in favour of the Indian. However it turned the other way.

Bonzi who is currently ranked 368th in the world broke Prajnesh in the second game of the first set but immediately lost his serve as the set was decided via tie-breaker. The Frenchman did not give an error-prone Prajnesh a semblance of a chance as he closed out the second set in just 21 minutes with three breaks in the first, third and fifth.

Meanwhile, Italian Thomas Fabbiano (pictured above) had come with a reputation of having registered two epic wins in 2019 defeating World No. 6 Stefanos Tsitsipas to reach the 2nd round of Wimbledon Open and beating World No. 4 Dominic Thiem in the 1st round of the US Open, just last year.

On Thursday, at the KSLTA Stadium, he did face some resistance from one of India’s leading player Saketh Myneni but eventually lived up to his billing of 9th seed here. The 30-year-old registered a 6-4, 5-7, 6-2 win to enter the quarterfinals of the US $ 162,500 prize money event.

Results

Singles (Pre-quarterfinals)

[9] Thomas Fabbiano (ITA) bt Saketh Myneni (IND) 6-4, 5-7, 6-2

[13] Ilya Ivashka (BLR) bt [17] Ramkumar Ramanathan (IND) 7-6(2), 6-1

[11] Blaz Rola (SLO) bt [8] Sumit Nagal (IND) 6-3, 6-3

Benjamin Bonzi (FRA) bt [7] Prajnesh Gunneswaran (IND) 7-6(5), 6-0

[3] Yuichi Sugita (JPN) bt [WC] Niki Poonacha (IND) 7-5, 6-3

[2] Stefano Travaglia (ITA) bt [14] Mohamed Safwat (EGY) 6-2, 7-6(5)

[4] James Duckworth (AUS) vs Frederico Ferreira Silva (POR) 7-6 (9), 6-1

Julian Ocleppo (ITA) bt Sidharth Rawat (IND) 7-5, 6-4

Doubles (Quarterfinals)

Saketh Myneni (IND)/Matt Reid (AUS) bt [1] Cheng-Peng Hsieh (TPE)/Denys Molchanov (UKR) 3-6, 6-4, 10-8

Matthew Ebden (AUS)/Leander Paes (IND) bt [3] Andre Goransson (SWE)/Christopher Rungkat (INA) 7-5, 0-6, 10-7

[4] Purav Raja (IND)/Ramkumar Ramanathan (IND) bt Frederico Ferreira Silva (POR)/Nikola Milojevic (SRB) 6-4, 6-4

[2] Jonathan Erlich (ISR)/Andrei Vasilevski (BLR) bt Lucas Rosol (CZE)/Yuichi Sugita (JPN) 6-3, 3-6, 10-5

Photo by Deepthi Indukuri