Fancied players bite the dust at Bengaluru Open

NT Correspondent

Bengaluru: It was a cruel day for the fancied players as all the four singles’ second-round matches scheduled for the day saw the exit of favorites.

First, it was young Chun-hsin Tseng of Taipei who defeated fourth seed Hugo Grenier of France in straight sets 6-1, 6-4 on centre court, and minutes later qualifier Borna Gojo of Croatia sent third seed Australian Aleksandar Vukic home with a 7-5, 6-3 victory to advance to the quarterfinals of the Bengaluru Open ATP Challenger at the KSLTA Courts here on Wednesday.

Belgian Kimmer Coppejans after a long-fought battle in the first set in which he won 14-12 in a tie-breaker won the second set 6-3 to oust fifth seed Altug Celikbilek of Turkey to make it to the last-eight stage along with another qualifier Gabriel Decamps of Brazil who labored hard to beat Italian Gian Marco Moroni 6-2, 5-7, 7-6 (3) in an epic 3 hours five minutes battle.

Borna Gojo, who single-handedly had put charted Croatia’s road to final in the Davis Cup, made a brilliant recovery winning the next three games including a break, and grabbed the first set by achieving another break in the 12th game. The second set went with the serves until the 23-year-old Borna broke his rival’s serve to lead 4-2 and wrapped up the match at 6-3. “Chun-hsin, who had finished as the World No.1 junior in 2018 after winning the French Open and Wimbledon Junior titles, took some time to warm up taking more than 7 minutes to wrap up the first game after being 40-0 up. Breaks in the fourth and seventh game helped the 20-year-old wrap up the first set 6-1. The second set saw the Frenchman stage a comeback until the fifth game where he lost his serve, thanks to two double faults which proved crucial and paved the way for Chun-hsin’s win. For the record, the Taipei youngster signed off with an ace in the 10th game.

Meanwhile, Prajnesh Gunneswaran of India will clash with top seed Jiri Vesely of the Czech Republic on Thursday for a place in the singles quarterfinal. As many as four Indian pairs will figure in the quarterfinals also to be played today.

Results:

Singles Pre-quarterfinals

Q-Borna Gojo (CRO) bt 3-Aleksandar Vukic (AUS) 7-5, 6-3; Chun-hsin Tseng (TPE) bt 4-Hugo Grenier 6-1, 6-4; Kimmer Coppejans (BEL) bt 5-Altug Celikbilek (TUR) 7-6 (12), 6-3; Q-Gabriel Decamps (BRA) bt Gian Marco Moroni (ITA) 6-2, 5-7, 7-6 (3).

Doubles (Round of 16)

1-Jeevan Nedumchezhiyan (IND)/Purav Raja (IND) bt ALT-Borna Gojo (CRO)/ Dimitar Kuzmanov (BUL) 6-4, 6-7 (2), 10-8; Steven Diez (CAN)/Malek Jaziri (TUN) bt Alt-Raul Brancaccio (ITA)/Johan Nikles (SUI) 5-7, 6-4, 10-6; 3-Saketh Myneni (IND)/Ramkumar Ramanathan (IND) bt Markos Kalovelonis (GRE)/Toshihide Matsui (JPN) 6-3, 6-3; Hugo Grenier (FRA)/ Alexandre Muller (FRA) bt Enzo Couacaud (FRA)/Andrew Harris (AUS) 6-2, 4-6, 11-9; 4-N Sriram Balaji (IND)/Vishnu Vardhan (IND) bt Mathias Bourgue (FRA)/Kimmer Coppejans (BEL) 4-6, 6-4, 10-3.