Chennai: It wasn’t a good day for Indians at the Chennai Open, as three Indians including Rohan Bopanna, Mohit Mayur and Prajnesh Gunneswaran were shown the door at the penultimate qualifying round of the tennis tournament at the Nungabakkam stadium on Sunday.
Bopanna did manage to give a tough fight to his Japanese opponent Go Soeda but lost 7-6 (7-2), 7-6 (7-2). The Bangalorean was broken in the third game of the first set. However, Bopanna broke back in the sixth game to the level scores but surrendered the set in a tie-breaker. The second also went into the tie-breaker, which Bopanna lost as at similar scores.
Meanwhile, Mayur and Gunneswaran also lost their battles. Mayur went down meekly 3-6, 2-6 to Vasek Pospisil of Canada, while Gunneswaran lost to American Rajeev Ram 6-3, 7-6 (7-3).
Results (qualifiers, round 2): Rik de Voest (RSA) bt Treat Conard Huey (Phi) 6-3, 6-4; Izak van der Merwe (RSA) bt Inogo Cervantes-Huegun 6-4, 7-5; Vasek Pospisil (Can) bt Jayaprakash Mohit Mayur (Ind) 6-3, 6-2; Rajeev Ram (USA) bt Prajnesh Gunneswaran (Ind) 6-3, 7-6 (7-3), Go Soeda (Jpn) bt Rohan Bopanna (Ind) 7-6 (7-2), 7-6 (7-2); Thiemo de Bakker (Ned) bt Juan Sebastian Cabal (Col) 6-1, 6-3; Roger-Vasselin Edouard (Fra) bt Dusan Lajovic (Ser) 7-6 (7-1), 6-2; Yuichi Sugita (Jpn) bt Joao Sousa (Por) 6-4, 6-1.
