Prajnesh Gunneswaran, the No. 1 Indian singles player got off to a dream start by beating the German Yannic Maden 7-6(4), 7-6(5) during the Tata Open Maharashtra currently being held in Pune.
It was a contest full of nerves in a match that had two tiebreakers but the Indian managed to gain the edge to begin this tournament on a high.
Gunneswaran is coming from a career-high No. 75 ranking achieved after he reached the third round of the BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells last year. With the current form he is in, he will look to better that ranking this year.
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Elsewhere, Jiri Versley handed over a straight-sets loss to Arjun Kadhe, 6-2, 6-4 in the opening round match of men’s singles. Kadhe, the local favourite entered the tournament as a wild-card entrant.
But he did give some fight during the second set of the match but it was not enough to snatch a win against the Czech who had also been struggling for form coming into this one.
Another Indian star, Sumit Nagal did put a strong resistance against Victor Troicki before suffering a loss in the opening round match of the Tata Open Maharashtra tournament. The second-ranked Indian had sent waves across the tennis world after beating Roger Federer in a set during his first-ever Grand Slam match at the 2019 US Open.
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But Nagal is set to return to action as his name was included in the main draw of the doubles tournament. He will partner Belarus’ Egor Gerasimov and take on Purav Raja and Ramkumar Ramanathan of India in the doubles opening match.
In the same doubles tournament, Rohan Bopanna and his partner, Kadhe will face the French duo, Antonie Hoang and Benoit Paire. The second day will also see Leander Paes in action who has partnered with Mathew Ebden of Australia.
Get the latest Pune Open 2020 predictions for February 5 here.
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