Anning Challenger | Prajnesh Gunneswaran and Saketh Myneni qualifies for Doubles quarter-finals

The Indian pair of Gunneswaran and Myneni was up against Spain’s Enrique Lopez Perez and Switzerland’s Luca Margaroli in straight sets of 7-6, 6-4 to make it to the top eight of the competition. The match started with an even manner and continued in the same way till the 12th game as both the pairs managed to hold their serves with the scoreline reading 6-6 in the first set. Eventually, the set went into a tie-breaker with the Gunneswaran and Myneni winning it 7-5 to take the set 7-6.

The second set was dominated by the Indians again and this time they managed to break the European pair’s service in the fifth game to make it 3-2 in their favour. Perez and Margaroli also got chances to break the serve of the Indians but Gunneswaran and Myneni held on to four break points in the next game to make it 4-2. They didn’t look back after that and eventually went to win the ticket to the quarter-final by winning the second set 6-4.

In another match, Ramkumar Ramanathan and Vishnu Vardhan lost their first-round match against Sander Arends and Tristan-Samuel Weissborn by straight sets and bowed out of the tournament being played in China. The Indian pair of Ramanthan and Vardhan lost 7-6, 7-6 as both the sets went into the tie-breaker. Arends and Weissborn held on to two break points in the third game of the first set and after the end of the 12th one, both the pairs were tied with six games each. The Indians lost the tie-breaker by 4-7 points and handed a win in the first set to the opponents. The Indians looked more competitive in the second set as they managed to broke the serve right after losing service towards the end of that set. The second set also went into the tie-breaker and the result was all the same for the Indians.

The second-seeded pair of N Sriram Balaji and James Cerretani have also made it to the quarter-final of the same event by beating the Chinese pair of Wu Di and He Yecong in straight sets 6-4, 7-6(4).