Easy win for Sriram Balaji in Futures tennis

Second seed N. Sriram Balaji had a comfortable straight sets win over Matias Castro of Argentina 6-3, 6-3 to move into the second round of the MCC SRS ITF Men's Tennis Futures tournament here on Monday.

Serving with precision and returning strongly, Balaji dominated the proceedings and never gave Martias any chance to make up the breaks he lost.

In another match, Chandril Sod made sixth seeded Karunodoy Singh toil in the first set which went to tie-break before the latter grew in confidence to take the second 6-3.

Young local lad Mukund Sasikumar did well to ease past Akash Wagh 6-3, 6-2, while another local challenger Elwin Anthony, a wild card entrant, displayed his experience and scored a well fought straight set win over Lakshit Sood.

Elwin now awaits to play the winner of the match between Saket Myneni, the top seed and the talented Mohit Mayur Jayaprakash to be played Tuesday.

Siddarth Rawat annihilated the other wild card entrant Fahad Mohammed 6-3, 6-0 to also enter the second round.

Results: Round 1: WC-Elwin Antony bt Lakshit Sood 6-4, 7-5; Sasi Kumar Mukund bt Akash Wagh 6-3, 6-2; Sidharth Rawat bt WC-Fahad Mohammed 6-3, 6-0; 6-Karunoday Singh bt Chandril Sood 7-6(3), 6-3; 2-Sriram Balaji bt Matias Castro (ARG) 6-3, 6-3.