Chennai Open 2019: N Vijay Sundar Prashanth, Arjun Khade, Sumit Nagal advance to second round

Chennai: Three Indians, N Vijay Sundar Prashanth, Arjun Khade and Sumit Nagal advanced to the second round of men’s singles main draw of the Chennai Open ATP Challenger 80 tennis tournament on Monday. [caption id=“attachment_4225071” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  File image of Sumit Nagal. AFP[/caption] Wild card entrant and local player Vijay Sundar Prashanth stole the show with a 6-2, 2-6, 6-2 win over Carlos Boluda-Purkiss of Spain in three sets. He started in flamboyant fashion, stroking smoothly on both flanks and served with precision, breaking his rival twice in the first set to run out an easy winner. In the second set, the Spaniard improved his first serve percentage and held his serve despite facing six break points. The Indian appeared to lose concentration and lost two of his service games to let Boluda-Purkiss take the set 6-2. In the decider, Prashanth found his form and took advantage of his opponent’s short returns by moving forward and putting away crisp volleys. From 2-all he took the next four games to seal a ssecond-roundberth against compatriot and 11th-seed Saket Myneni. In other matches, an improved Khade breezed past Ivan Nedelko of Russia 6-4, 6-1, while Nagal made short work of David Perez Sanz of Spain in straight sets. Nagal will take on eighth seed Duckhee Lee of Korea in the next round. Indian wild card entrant Abhinav Sanjeev crashed out in the opening round, losing 3-6, 4-6 to Japan’s Renta Tokuda. Frenchman Antoine Escoffier was an impressive 6-2, 6-2 winner against Evgenii Tiurnev of Russia. The qualifying draw saw both the Indians — Dhakshineshwar Suresh and Sidharth Rawat crashing out.