Top seed Prakash Amritraj survived a scare from Rohan Gajjar while Sunil Kumar Sipaeya ousted a ragged Mustafa Ghouse in the Gail ITF Satellite Masters men's tennis tournament at the DLTA Complex in Delhi on Tuesday.
Gajjar was up a break at 5-4 in the first set against Amritraj but then failed to withstand the aggressive tactics of his opponent, who upped the ante at the right time to eventually win 7-6(7/2), 6-2 and enter the quarter-finals.
Ghouse resembled a mangled car wreck while Sipaeya showed application and patience to carve out an easy 6-4, 6-2 victory in another second round match.
Malaysian Yew Ming Si ousted fourth seed Vijay Kannan 6-3, 6-2 but Vinod Sridhar hung in after needing two hours and five minutes for his 6-4, 4-6, 6-1 win against Don Hee Choi of Korea.
Hong Kong's Hiu Tung Yu scored the biggest upset, with a 6-2, 6-2 rout of second seed Prima Simpatiaji of Indonesia.
Amritraj conceded that the four-week grind is beginning to take its toll on him.
"I was a bit unwell, a bit dehydrated," said Amritraj, the winner of the second and third legs of the ITF Satellite Indian cricuit.
The Sipaeya-Ghouse match-up was a case of the complicated vs the uncomplicated. Both players went into the tie with a point or two to prove after their disappointing performances in the past weeks. But in the end, it was Sipaeya, the former Asian junior champion, who seemed to have done his home work as he decimated Ghouse with some effortless stroke-play.
