An off-colour Karan Rastogi was whipped 0-6 1-6, while Harsh Mankad also went down in straight sets as Indians drew a blank on the opening day of the $ 50,000 SAIL Open Challenger series tournament at the DLTA courts in New Delhi on Monday.
While Rastogi was blown away by Czech Tomas Cakl, Mankad gave some fight to Israel's Dekel Valtzer before being beaten 3-6 6-7 (3/7).
Rastogi was the first to take the court after early morning showers, which left the courts wet, delayed the start by almost an hour.
The Indian, who was ousted in the opening round of last week's Challengers, didn't look any better on Monday and had no answer to Cakl's booming serve.
The Czech sent down nine aces in his demolition of Rastogi, who was struggling to even keep his first serve in on a chilly morning.
Rastogi was also outplayed close to the nets and lacked pace while covering the baseline during the rallies, which were few to start with as Cakl's powerful and deep returns hardly found any response from the Indian.
After being blanked in the opening set, Rastogi also began to lose his cool and slammed his racquet in frustration after one of his umpteenth miscued shots.
Cakl, on the other hand, was a picture of concentration and went about his business without much fuss. His serve got him the opening set while his brilliance from close to the nets earned him the second set and the match in less than an hour's time.
Cakl will now be up against fourth seed Spaniard Adrian Menendez, who defeated Kazakhstan's Alexey Kedriouk 6-4 6-4 in his first-round match.
After Rastogi was sent packing, Mankad got a similar treatment from Valtzer at least in the opening set. The Israeli broke Mankad in the fifth game and led 5-3 before tapping in a winner on Mankad's serve to take the first set.
The Indian fought back in the second set, breaking Valtzer twice to lead 4-1 and raise hopes of drawing level. But Valtzer was quick to claw back into the match from there on.
Down 3-5, the Israeli broke back and sent some fierce aces down the court to make it 6-6 and take the match into the tie-breaker.
Mankad wilted under pressure and had no answer to Valtzer's deep serve, rounding off a disappointing day in singles for the hosts.
Valtzer now has a tough match on hand as he takes on fifth seed Russian Michail Elgin, who beat last week's finalist Korean An Jae Sung 6-0 6-2.
Meanwhile, in another match, Ukraine's Ilia Marchenko got an easy passage into the second round after his opponent, Finland's Juho Paukku, retired with Marchenko leading 6-1.
