Rohan Gajjar overcame minor hiccups to move into the second round while Ajay Ramaswami self destructed on his way to a first round exit in the Gail ITF Satellite Masters men's tennis tournament in Delhi on Monday.
Gajjar was sailing smooth and up a set before he dropped serve and allowed Kedar Tembe back into the match. But the Arkansa University student changed gears in time to break back and clinch the tie-breaker for a 6-2, 7-6 (7/2)first round victory at the DLTA Complex.
Ramaswami too was up a set and a break in the second against Eliran Dooyev before frittering away the advantage. But, unlike Gajjar, Ramaswami failed to capitalise on his fair share of opportunities and imploded under self doubts to gift the Israeli a 2-6, 7-5, 6-0 victory in an hour and 49 minutes.
Vishal Uppal was a dead man walking in his 6-1, 6-4 loss to Sunil Kumar Sipaeya. Obviously he had not completely recovered from the shoulder strain that forced him to concede the match to Amritraj in the second round last week.
Uppal couldn't serve, couldn't return and couldn't move around the court. The result was an abysmal first serve percentage and embarrassing, if not humiliating, passing shots that flew inches past him even though he had all the time in the world to get into position.
If he still broke Sipaeya to reduce the margin in the second set, that only spoke of the kind of tennis that the latter has been playing in recent weeks.
Sipaeya's opponent in the next round will be Hayato Furukawa of Japan, who defeated Parantap Chaturvedi 6-4, 6-2 in another first round match.
For one who had to qualify through three rounds in the third leg, Tembe has done well to enter the Masters. But he froze when leading 5-3 in the second set.
Even in the fifth game he had to save a break-point, and although he managed to hold serve he became too defensive from there on to assert himself over the opponent. Gradually he started to fall too much behind the baseline allowing Gajjar to play his shots.
Eventually Tembe lost the one-break advantage in the ninth game, and Gajjar simply stepped on the accelerator to build a 4-0 lead in the tie-breaker from where on defeat became imminent for Tembe.
"I lost my focus briefly but then he was only one break up. So I started attacking the net more and my plan worked," said Gajjar, who now faces top seed Prakash Amritraj in the second round.
Malaysia's Yew Ming Si did not let a rain interruption affect his concentration as he edged out Saurav Panja 7-6 (7/2), 6-4 while Dong Hee Choi of Korea needed two hours and 18 minutes to win 6-3, 6-7 (5/7), 6-1 against Richard Crabtree of Great Britain.
Later, Hong Kong's Hiu Tung Yu staved off a tough challenge from Stephen Amritraj to win 6-3, 2-6, 7-6 (7/4) while Japanese Katsushi Fukuda knocked out another Hong Kong player Brian Hung 6-2, 6-0.
