Ankita Raina advances; Vishnu Vardhan, N Sriram Balaji through to second round

06/27/2018

World No. 213 Ankita Raina eased past Maia Lumsden in the first round of the Wimbledon qualifiers. While Indian pair of Vishnu Vardhan and N Sriram Balaji advanced to second round, Jeevan Nedunchezhiyan and American partner Austin Krajicek had to fight hard to win in the men’s doubles.

The first round of Wimbledon qualifiers began in London on Monday. In Men's singles Prajnesh Gunneswaran, Sumit Nagal and Ramkumar Ramnathan faced an early exit in first round thereby ending India's challenge for the main draw. Hence , India's hopes to qualify in singles rested highly on their best women's singles player Ankita Raina, who was facin Maia Lumsden of Great Britain in the first round on Tuesday.

The world no 213 proved her superiority over the world no 422 by kicking off her campaign with an easy straight-set win. Raina routed the wild card local entrant 6-2 6-1 to set up the second round clash with Russia’s Vitalia Diatchenko, ranked about 70 places above her at 134.

In men's doubles first round qualifier match, the Indian pair of Vishnu Vardhan and N Sriram had a 6-3 6-4 win over Sergio Galdos and Gerald Melzer. The sixth-seeded pair will now face top-seeded pair of I. Zelenay and D.Molchanav in the second round.

Also, advancing to the second round of men's doubles was Jeevan Nedunchezhiyan with his partner from United States Austin Krajicek. The fourth seeds faced stiff competition from Britons Marcus Willis and Aidan McHugh before prevailing 7-6(3) 6-3 in the opening round.

Both the doubles pair will need to win one match to reach the main draw while Raina has to win 2 matches to qualify for women's singles at Wimbledon.