Second seeded Prakash Amritraj overcame a fighting Jae Sung An in straight sets to advance to the second round of $ 50,000 ATP Challenger tournament, in New Delhi on Tuesday.
Amritraj, India's highest ranked singles player, quelled the challenge of his Korean opponent 7-6, 6-4 in the opening round encounter at DLTA Complex.
Both the players played a solid service game as the first set went with serves, forcing a tie-break in which Amritraj prevailed.
The Indian made a good start in the second set breaking Sung in the first and third games and thereby took a 3-0 lead.
When it looked that Amritraj will wrap it up quickly, the Korean came up with tremendous resilience and broke back his opponent to level it 3-3.
From there on, the set went with serves till the 10th game when Amritraj broke his rival for the final time to seal the issue in his favour.
With this win, Amritraj joins Sunil Kumar Sipaeya in the pre-quarterfinal round.
Barring Sunil, no other Indian player could cross the first round hurdle on the first day as National Champion Ashutosh Singh and qualifier Yuki Bhambri lost their first round matches.
