Pune: Local girls Apurva Barate and Sanskruti Jangale made a perfect start to their campaign in the Walchand Cup National Series Tennis Tournament at Deccan Gymkhana on Tuesday.
With all seeded players having bye in the first round, Barate got the better of compatriot Shrishti Das 6-4, 6-4, while Jangale had a equally comfortable first round outing against another local girl, Preeti Bhandurge, winning it 6-3, 6-0.
It was a good day for the seeds on the boy’s side, with 14th seed Mumbai lad Nikhil Kannan being the only casualty which kept up the trend of the tournament so far with one upset per day. Tamil Nadu’s Ganesh Srinivasan had a bit too much power for Kannan to handle, with the former running away with it 6-3, 6-1.
Only two local seeds made it to the round of 16 with ease on Tuesday. Tenth seed Jayesh Pungaliya didn’t need to enter the court, getting a walkover from his local opponent Yash Agarwal, while 12th seed Indra Patwardhan got the better of Yashesh Mulchandani of Madhya Pradesh 6-3, 6-2.
Meanwhile, Day 1 giant-killer Neil Laplikar fell by the wayside with a sound beating by S Gokul (Tamil Nadu) in a match that saw Neil win just three games.
