Archana Venkatraman shocked

Defending champion and top-seeded Sai Jayalakshmi overcame a shaky start to move into the women's singles second round while top seed Vijay Kanan led the march of men's seeds on Day 2 in the DSCL Open National hardcourt tennis championship in Delhi on Tuesday.

Sai was given a tough time by unseeded Nandita Chandrasekhar of Tamil Nadu, before prevailing 3-5, 4-2, 5-3, 4-0. She will meet qualifier Rati Kumar of Maharashtra in the second round. The latter beat wildcard-entrant Tamil Nadu's Padma Preetham 4-1, 4-0, 4-0.

However, third-seeded Archana Venkatraman was shocked by Maharashtra's Liza Pereira in a long drawn five-setter. The Karnataka girl, who won the first set easily at 4-0, lost the second 3-5. Though she was able to clinch the third 4-2, she could not sustain the severe onslaught of her Maharashtra rival and lost the last two sets 1-4, 1-4.

The marathon match lasted 2 hours, 20 minutes.

In other women's action, fourth seed Sonal Phadke was extended to four sets by Lata Assudani before winning 4-0, 0-4, 4-0, 4-1; sixth seed Megha Vakharia beat Nikita Bharadwaj 4-0, 4-1, 4-0 in just 40 minutes, and Sania Mirza, who crashed out of the girls' under-18 singles on Monday, beat Reedhina Parekh 4-1, 5-3, 4-2.

Vijay Kannan defeated Ravikrishna Palivela 6-4, 6-4 in an hour and 25 minutes, in a match that was heavily dominated by power serving, while in another men's first round match, second seed Vinod Sridhar drubbed Amanjot Singh 6-2, 6-2 in just over an hour.

Seventh seed Saurav Panja was tested by Kamala Kannan before prevailing 7-6 (7/3), 6-3, while eighth seed Rishi Sridhar was stretched to three sets by Rohan Gajjar before winning 6-1, 4-6, 7-6 (7-2).

In the boys' under-18 event, seventh seed Harshit Sharma beat Nikhil Murali 7-5, 6-2 to advance to the second round.