Chennai: The colour of Somdev Devvarman’s attire reflected his mood when his campaign in the season-opening Chennai Open tournament came to a premature end on Tuesday. The Indian suffered early-season blues for the second year in a row as he went down to Yen-Hsun Lu of Chinese Taipei 3-6, 4-6.
Somdev’s defeat also signalled the end of the Indian challenge in the 28-player singles draw after Ramkumar Ramanathan and Vijay Sundar Prashanth were eliminated in the first round.
After taking the first set in no time, Lu, seeded sixth here, broke Somdev in the very first game of the second set. The Indian, ranked 136, did stage a comeback by making it 3-3, but Lu broke back before wrapping up the contest at 6-4 with an impressive forehand winner.
Up against world No. 87, Tatsumo Ito, who stunned Stan Wawrinka in Tokyo last year, Ramkumar had his task cut out in front of his home crowd. Pumping his fists, the lanky 20-year-old with overflowing aggression derives inspiration from the crowd. But it was not to be on Tuesday.
Results (first round): Elias Ymer (Swe) bt Igor Sijsling (Ned) 6-4, 4-6, 6-3; RicardsBerankis (Ltu) Luca Vanni (Ita) 6-1, 2-6, 7-5; Tatsuma Ito (Jpn) bt Ramkumar Ramanathan (Ind) 6-3, 6-3; Jiri Vesely (Cze) bt Vijay Sundar Prashanth (Ind) 6-2, 6-1; Ajaz Bedene (Slo) bt Lukas Lacko (Svk) 7-6(0), 6-3; Pablo Carreno Busta (Spa) bt Alejandro Gonzalez (Col) 6-1, 6-3; Guillermo Garcia-Lopez (Spa) bt Evgeny Donskoy (Rus) 6-7 (3), 6-2, 6-3.
