New Delhi: Top seed Sriram Balaji churned out a 6-1, 6-2 win over Delhi’s Rubal Shandilya in the first round of the men’s singles in the Fenesta Open tennis championship at the DLTA courts here on Monday even as women’s second seed Rishika Sunkara went down to Shweta Rana 5-7, 1-6.
Having arrived late, Sriram won three rounds in the qualifiers and rode a solid serve backed by sustained aggression on either flank to crush his opponent. Rubal has played a lot of tennis in the capital and done well in smaller prize money tournaments. He runs his own coaching programme as well, though it was not his day against Balaji.
There was no major upset in other men’s matches with third seed Mohit Mayur Jayaprakash and Sidharth Rawat warming up for tougher battles ahead. Mohit beat Jayesh Pungliya 7-5, 7-6 (8) while Rawat got the better of Paramveer Singh Bajwa 6-3, 6-0.
In the boys’ under-18, top seed Aryan Goveas did not drop a single game as he whipped Jaydeep Chudasama 6-0, 6-0 while seventh seed Alex Solanki had an easy outing against Amarnath Arora and won 6-1, 6-3.
Aryan later in the evening battled for almost three hours before losing in a three-setter to Siddharth Vishwakarma in the men’s singles 6-3, 3-6, 7-6 (2). This being the first day, there was plenty of action on all the courts as the wheat was being separated from the chaff. Women’s matches got underway late in the afternoon.
