Ranjeet moves ahead

Second seed VM Ranjeet thrashed R Arun Prakash to advanc to the seco­nd round of the Dr KCG Verghese-GNC ITF Men’s Futures Tennis Champ­i­onships here on Monday.

From the start he was in total control of the game and pushed  rookie Arun Prakash to the brink. Though the latter ex­hibited a better fight in the se­cond set, Ranjeet’s game w­­as too composed to be ruffl­e­d. Later, Siddharth  Rawat prevailed over Australia Zach Itzstein to underline his mett­le. The Australian riposted after losing the opening set, Rawat reinstated his authority in  the decider to romp ho­me. N Vijay Sundar Prasanth and Kaza Vinayak Sharma too progressed.

Singles (1st  round): Sidharth Rawat (IND) bt Zach Itzstein (AUS) 6-4, 3-6, 6-3; N Vijay Sundar Prashanth (IND) (6) bt Abhijeet Tiwari (IND) 6-1, 6-3; Antoine Escoffier (FRA) (4) bt Chinmay Pradhan (IND) 6-0, 6-1; Elbert Sie (INA) bt Vignesh Peranamallur (IND) 6-2, 6-1; Yang LU (CHN) bt Kumara P Saradhi Adavelly (IND) 6-2, 6-1; Kaza Vinayak Sharma (IND) bt Ashwin Vijayragavan (IND) 6-2, 4-6, 6-4; Ranjeet Virali-Murugesan (IND) (2) Arun Prakash Rajagopalan (IND) 6-1, 6-4. Doubles (1st round): Weerapat Doakmaiklee (THA) / Perakiat Siriluethaiwattana (THA) (1) bt Aditya Hari Sasongko (INA) / Elbert SIE (INA) 6-2, 6-3; Chih-Jen Ho (TPE) / Yang Lu (CHN) Walkover Hyun-Woo Nam (KOR) / Seong-Gook Oh (KOR); Antoine Escoffier (FRA) / Bastien Favier (FRA) bt Kunal Anand (IND) / Ajai Selvaraj (IND) 6-2, 6-4; Tejas Chaukulkar (IND) / Arjun Kadhe (IND) bt Kuan-I Lee (TPE) / Jui Mao (TPE) 6-4, 3-6 (10-7).