December 15

IV Wildcard entrant Divij Sharan was business-like in his 6-0, 6-2 demolition of the fifth-seeded Jaco T Mathew in men's singles first round play at the DSCL Open National Tennis Championship at the DLTA Complex here on Monday. The 17-year-old left-hander, who has three doubles titles and a runner-up finish at Pretoria in ITF junior tournaments this year, was given a wild card entry since he did not have enough ranking point to get a berth in the main draw. ¡§I have played a lot of doubles in the recent months and have benfitted from the 15 weeks that I have spent on the circuit. I am now looking forward to proving my mettle as a singles player as well,¡¨ said the first-year student of Sri Ram College of Commerce here.

The defending champion and top-seeded Vinod Sridhar did not lose much time in taking his place in the second round with a 6-1, 6-3 verdict over Madhya Pradesh's Shryansh Sancheti.

Saurav Panja rallied from the loss of the first set to score a 3-6, 6-1, 6-2 victory over Andhra Pradesh youngster J Vishnuvardhan to set up a pre-quarterfinal clash with third-seeded Kedar Tembe (Maharashtra). Tembe was a 6-4, 6-4 winner over VM Ranjeet (Tamil Nadu).

In other men's play, former National grasscourt champion Vasudeva Reddy (Andhra Pradesh) won the first set against Delhi youngster Gurmehar Singh and was trailing 2-4 in the second when play was suspended due to poor light. Vasudeva Reddy succeeded in convincing Tournament Referee Puneet Gupta that the floodlights were inadequate.

In the women's draw, top-seeded Liza Pereira (Maharashtra), ranked fifth on the AITA list, started her challenge with a 6-2, 6-1 win against State-mate Rati Kumar.

The second-seeded Sai Jayalakshmy (Tamil Nadu) returned to tournament play after a lay off due to injury and made an emphatic statement about how dear the National championship was to her during a quickfire win over Naina Karsolia.  Sai's doubles partner Shruti Dhawan (Chandigarh), seeded fifth, was just as meticulous in disposing off Vishika Chhetri (Delhi).

Rupesh Roy (Bengal) and Sanaa Bhambri (Delhi), installed as favourites in the boys and girl's under-18 events made their way through to the second round without much fuss. Rupesh Roy dropped a game in either set as he defeated Manu Bajpai (Karnataka).

Divij Sharan , seeded second behind Rupesh Roy, beat Rahil Makharia 6-1, 6-3 to stay on course in the 64-player draw.

Sanaa Bhambri , No. 2 in the AITA junior ranking list, was an easy winner over Maharashtra¡¦s Kanisha Mehta in the the 32-player girls¡¦ under-18 draw.

The second-seeded Madura Ranganathan beat Jhilke Nelord 6-0, 6-1.

The results (first round):

Men's singles:

• Vinod Sridhar beat Shryansh Sacheti 6-1, 6-3;
• Gursharan Singh beat Anjan Viplav 3-6, 7-6 (1), 6-4;
• R Narendran beat Manchit Madan 6-4, 6-0;
• Saurav Panja beat J Vishnu Vardhan 3-6, 6-1, 6-2;
• Somdev Dev Varman beat Ashutosh Singh 6-1, 6-2;
• Divij Sharan beat Jaco T Mathew 6-0, 6-2;
• Kedar Tembe beat VM Ranjeet 6-4, 6-4;
• Vasudeva Reddy vs Gurmehar Singh 6-4, 2-4 (play suspended).

Women's singles:

• S Preethi beat Varsha Shivshankar 6-0, 6-2;
• Shruiti Dhawan beat Varshika Chheti 6-3, 6-0;
• S Punam Reddy beat Jhilke Nelord 6-1, 6-2;
• Anupama Rajur beat Italia Khushchehr 6-2, 6-0;
• Sai Jayalakshmi beat Naina Karsolia 6-2, 6-1.
• Liza Pereira beat Rati Kumar 6-2, 6-1;
• Lata Assudani beat Nandini Perumal 6-2, 6-1;
• Ragini Vimal beat Krushmi Chheda 6-2, 7-5;.

Boys under-18 singles:

• Kartik Raju beat N Kiran Kumar 6-1, 6-0;
• Prateek Shantaraju beat Vikas Punna 6-1, 6-2;
• Aditya Sharma beat Nitish Raaj 6-0, 7-5;
• Arjun Talwar beat Chandam Shooken 6-1, 6-2;
• Kaushik Raju beat Honey Rana 6-3, 7-6 (7),
• Vishnu Vardhan beat Rishu Yadav 6-0, 6-0;
• Siddharth Gulati beat Ajai Selvaraj 6-1, 6-2;
• Lalit Mann beat Sanam K Singh 6-1, 6-2;
• Divij Sharan beat Rahil Makharia 6-1, 6-3;
• Aditya Madkeka beat P Vivek Reddy 6-2, 6-0;
• Vivek Shokeen beat MV Abhay Prakash 6-3, 6-2;
• GP Pranjesh beat Abhinav Grover 1-6, 6-1, 6-1;
• Vignesh Venkatesan beat M Fariz 6-1, 6-2;
• VS Prasanth beat Agnivesh Das Gupta 6-1, 6-0;
• Navdeep Singh beat Wrik Ganguly 3-6, 6-4, 6-2;
• Tejesvi Rao beat Vijit Sehgal 6-7 (12), 6-3, 6-4;
• Rupesh Roy beat Manu Bajpai 6-1, 6-1;
• Anshuman Dutta beat Yannick Nelord 6-1, 6-3;
• Saurabh Kohli beat Gomes Allan Alex 6-4, 6-0;
• Sandeep Kumar beat Somdeep Appineni 6-2, 6-2;
• Syed Rahil beat Paras Thakur 7-5, 7-5;
• Siddharth Patil beat M Hariprasath 6-3, 6-1;
• Ankit Patel beat Rohan Bhandari 6-2, 6-0;
• Arjun Vaidya beat Pawan Polavarapu 7-6 (2), 6-1;
• J Nedunchezhiyan beat M Saketh Sai 6-1, 6-3;
• Jitin Bishnoi beat Vivek Yadav 6-4, 6-2;
• Vikram A Menon beat Gursher Singh 6-3, 6-1;
• Sumit P Gupta beat KH Praveen 6-4, 6-2;
• Rohan Gide beat Sabyasachi Bose 7-6 (4) 6-1;
• LS Anantha Bhaskar beat Alon Moses 5-7, 7-5, 7-6 (5).

Girls under-18 singles:

• Sandhya Nagraj beat Tejaswini Datla 6-1, 6-2;
• Vandana Murali beat Afreen Jahan 6-1, 2-6, 6-2;
• Krushmi Chheda beat Shivika Burman 6-2, 6-3;
• Paritala Meghna beat Shalini Sahoo 6-2, 6-4.
• Madura Ranganathan beat Jhilke Nelord 6-0, 6-1;
• Swetha G Kakhandki beat Shradha Lodha 2-6, 6-4, 6-1;
• Prerna Murthy beat Shilpi Jaiswal 2-6, 6-4, 6-3;
• Parul Goswami beat Deepa Chakravorty 6-3, 6-0;
• Kartiki Bhatt beat Pooja Venkatesh 6-4, 6-2;
• Sanaa Bhambri beat Kanisha Mehta 6-0, 6-1;
• Madura Ranganathan beat Jhilke Nelord 6-0, 6-1;
• Parija Maloo beat Micah Muhury 6-0, 6-1.