Veteran edges past Roger-Vasselin in marathon opener
Gilles Muller of Luxembourg returns to France's Edouard Roger-Vasselin during their Chennai Open first round match at the SDAT Tennis Stadium on Monday. Muller won 6-7 (11), 6-1, 7-6 (3). (Photo: PTI/File)
CHENNAI: A marathon slugfest greeted the near-empty stadium as the 20th edition of the ATP Chennai Open got off to a mundane start here on Monday.
In a clash of Tour veterans that lasted two and a half hours, Gilles Muller cashed in on his big serve to get the better of Edouard Roger-Vasselin 6-7 (11), 6-1, 7-6 (3). Muller, the eight seed from Luxembourg, rifled in 29 aces and three of them came in the deciding tie-breaker.
The first set that had no breaks of serve saw Edouard, last year’s runner-up here, grinding it out from the baseline. Muller too wasn’t bothered to rush the net. The Frenchman who was a bundle of energy en route to winning the first set tie-breaker looked shadow of himself in the second as he lost his serve thrice. It was a meek surrender.
Edouard even admitted that his tactic of “giving up” the second set did not work. “I thought I could be ready for the third. I had my chances, but he played better than me, especially in the tie-breaker.
“This was obviously not a good start to the year. Last year I reached the final and today I am out in the first round,” said the Frenchman, who lost to Stan Wawrinka in the 2014 final.
Southpaw Muller grew in with confidence when his most potent weapon the serve left Edouard in tatters. “Initially, I was a bit passive. When I realised that I can’t rally with him from the baseline, I started moving to the net to finish the points. And it worked,” said Muller.
Spaniard Marcel Granollers became the first seeded player to fall as the seventh seed retired with a knee injury when he was 0-2 down in the third set against Andreas Haider-Maurer of Austria.
Earlier, Vijay Sundar Prashanth emerged out of obscurity to storm into the main draw after beating Illya Marchenko of Ukraine 2-6, 7-6, 7-5. Prashanth is ninth time lucky as he has never got past the first round of qualifying in his previous attempts.
Prashanth’s win holds great significance for the fact that only four Indians Harsh Mankad (2005), Rohan Bopanna (2006, 2009), Prakash Amritraj (2010, 2013) and Ramkumar Ramanathan (2014) have made it to the main draw through the qualifiers in the 20-year history of the tournament.
Not many expected Prashanth to come through. The 28-year-old was down 2-5 in the final set. But egged on by his friends and a sparse crowd on the outside court, he pulled off an incredible comeback though, breaking Marchenko’s serve twice en route to clinching five consecutive games.
( Source : dc )
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