Kadhe, Rawat go down fi ghting

NT Correspondent

Bengaluru: Wildcard entrants Arjun Kadhe and Sidharth Rawat went down fighting in the second round of the Bengaluru Open 2 ATP Challenger that also signaled the end of India’s challenge in the singles event at the KSLTA Courts here on Thursday.

While Kadhe lost to third seed Enzo Couacaud of France 6-7 (7), 5-7, Rawat failed against Swiss Antoine Bellier to go down 6-4, 2-6, 6-4.

However, two Indian pairs entered the semifinals in the doubles event. While Saketh Myneni and Ramkumar Ramanathan took a step closer to defending their title they won last week after getting past the Ukraine-German pair of Vladyslav Orlov and Kai Wehnelt 6-4, 7-6 (3), N Sriram Balaji and Vishnu Vardhan combined well to overcome the duo of Markos Kalovelonis of Great Britain and Japanese Toshihide Matsui 6-3, 4-6, 11-9.

Results

Singles (Round of 16) Johan Nikles (SUI) bt Q-Markos Kalovelonis (GRE) 6-2, 6-3; 3-Enzo Couacaud (FRA) bt WC-Arjun Kadhe (IND) 7-6 (7), 7-5; Q-Antoine Bellier (SUI) bt WC-Sidharth Rawat (IND) 6-4, 2-6, 6-4; Borna Gojo (CRO) bt Andrey Kuznetsov (RUS) 6-4, 6-1.