Bengaluru Open 2023 | Mukund Sasikumar and Prajnesh Gunneswaran advance to second round of qualifiers
Mukund Sasikumar and Prajnesh Gunneswaran, two tennis players from India, won their first-round singles qualifications at the Bengaluru Open 2023 on Sunday. The world No. 402 Sasikumar outplayed world No. 170 Andrew Paulson at the KSLTA Stadium and defeated the Czech player 6-1, 6-4.
No. 1 in India, Prajnesh Gunneswaran had a more challenging opponent in Zimbabwean Benjamin Lock. He had trouble in the opening set, but he was able to maintain control and win 7-5, 6-4.
In the second round of qualifying, Mukund Sasikumar will compete against Jason Jung of Chinese Taipei, while Prajnesh Gunneswaran will compete against Carlos Sanchez Jover to earn a spot in the main draw, which gets off on Monday.
Ramkumar Ramanathan, meanwhile, suffered sadness. He had a strong performance against the former world No. 78 Yasutaka Uchiyama of Japan but lost 6-3, 5-7, 3-6 in an exciting three-set match that lasted more than two hours.
Sidharth Rawat, Kriish Tyagi, Digvijaypratap Singh, and Manish Ganesh were four more Indians who lost in their individual bouts despite being wild card participants.
The top-seed Tseng Chun-Hsin of Chinese Taipei, Australian Marc Polmans, and fifth-seed Luca Nardi will play in the Bengaluru Open 2023's main event on Monday.
In the main draw, Sumit Nagal will face Ly Hoang Nam of Vietnam after a valiant effort against world No. 9 Holger Rune of Denmark earlier this month in the Davis Cup.
Sumit Nagal enters the competition after reaching the semifinals of the Chennai Open Challenger the previous week.
The Bangalore Open, which is now in its sixth year, is a stop on the ATP Challenger Tour in 2023. The competition will end on February 26.
Arjun Kadhe of India and Alexander Erler of Austria, who won the doubles championship last year together, will pair up with Maximilian Neuchrist of Austria in Erler's absence. The fourth-seeded Indo-Austrian team will face Petr Nouza and Andrew Paulson of the Czech Republic on Tuesday.
Tennis players Divij Sharan and Purav Raja from India are seeded third in doubles, while Sumit Nagal and Mukund Sasikumar will partner up. The other two Indian teams on the entry list are SD Prajwal Dev/Parikshit Somani and Anirudh Chandrasekar/VS Prashanth. Ramkumar Ramanathan will team up with F Maestrelli.