Bengaluru Open | Indians fall by the wayside again

Indian men's singles tennis players face disappointing losses at Bengaluru Open, with only one win out of six matches.

The hopes of a feel good story in Indian men’s singles tennis were extinguished on Tuesday at the Bengaluru Open as Ramkumar Ramanathan, Karan Singh and Manas Dhamne all lost their first-round matches at the KSLTA courts here.

The defeats meant that only one Indian player – Mukund Sasikumar – out of the six who competed in the singles main draws across four ATP Challengers in Chennai, Delhi, Pune and Bengaluru this month won a match. The collective win-loss record was a lowly 1-12.

Karan Singh, 21, and the teenaged Manas Dhamne tried their utmost to dispel the gloom but fell over three agonising sets.

Karan impressed with his first-strike tennis and matched Austria’s Jurij Rodionov shot-for-shot. But from being 3-2 up in the deciding-set tiebreak, he lost five straight points to bow out 4-6, 6-4, 6-7(3).

Dhamne, who relies more on court craft than brute power, played admirably against the burly qualifier Petr Bar Biryukov.

Despite the match appearing to rest on Biryukov’s racquet – the Russian was taller by over three inches and better by 379 ranking-places – the 17-year-old Indian, ranked 774, charmed the crowd with some fine stroke-making and spirited defense.

He also displayed nerves of steel, holding serve at 4-5 and 5-6 in the third set to stay in the contest. But Biryukov’s murderous serve – he served 14 aces to his opponent’s zero – ultimately proved the difference in the tie-break as Dhamne, under pressure, double-faulted on match-point.