File image of Prajnesh Gunneswaran
India's No. 1 Prajnesh Gunneswaran stamped his authority with a straight-set victory over Germany's Yannick Maden in the singles opening round match at the third Tata Open Maharashtra tennis tournament here on Tuesday.
Gunneswaran held his nerves throughout the match as both the sets went into tie-breakers before the Indian wrapped up the hard-fought contest 7-6 (7-4), 7-6 (7-5) to begin his campaign on a winning note.
In the other singles opening round match, local boy Arjun Kadhe suffered a 2-6, 4-6 defeat at the hands of Jiri Vesley.
Playing in front of home crowd, Kadhe, who received a wild card entry into the main draw, tried to make a comeback into the match with some good fight in the second set but it was too late as the 26-year-old Czech player wrapped up the match convincingly.
India's Rohan Bopanna and Sumit Nagal will be key attraction on the third day of the tournament on Wednesday as they begin their quest for the doubles title. Bopanna and his partner Kadhe will take on the French pair of Benoit Paire and Antonie Hoang.
Just a day after getting knocked out in the singles opening round, Nagal will be back in action as he is included in the doubles main draw following the withdrawal of Peter Gojowczyk due to injury.
The 22-year-old Nagal, who went down 6-2, 6-7, 6-1 against Serbian ace Viktor Troicki on Monday, will replace the German pair of Gojowczyk and Cedrik-Marcel Stebe in the main draw.
Nagal and his partner Egor Gerasimov of Belarus will face the Indian pair of Ramkumar Ramanathan and Purav Raja in the opening round match.
Australian James Duckworth registered a hard-fought 7-6 (7-5), 6-4 win over Gojowczyk. Duckworth is making his maiden appearance at South Asia's only ATP Tour tournament.
