Mukund survives scare in Mandya tennis

Seeded players, barring Sasi Kumar Mukund who was taken to three sets, made smooth progress in the ITF Futures Mandya Open tennis tournament here on Tuesday.

Mukund, after winning the first set, lost the second via the tie-breaker before wrapping up the third against a determined Anvit Bendre to move into the second round with a 6-4, 6-7 (3), 6-3 verdict.

Tournament top seed Antoine Escoffier of France drove straight to the tournament venue from Bengaluru after missing his scheduled flight from Europe to dispose off wild card and upcoming Indian youngster Aryan Goveas in straight sets.

Maharashtrian Akash Wagh had to slug it out against Lakshit Sood, before winning 6-4, 7-5 in a match that lasted a little over two hours to set up a clash with No. 8 seed Vishnu Vardhan in the second round.

Results (Prefix denotes seeding, Indians unless stated):

Singles (1st round): 7-Vinayak Sharma Kaza bt Sahil Gaware 6-3, 6-3; 6-Jui-Chen Hung (Tpe) bt Jayesh Pungliya 6-1, 6-4; Chandril Sood bt Shotaro Goto (Jpn) 4-6, 7-6 (5), 6-2; 2-Ranjeet Virali Murugesan bt Haadin Bava 6-1, 6-3; 8-Vishnu Vardhan bt Aditya Deswal 6-3, 6-4; Akash Wagh bt Lakshit Sood 6-4, 7-5; 1-Antoine Escoffier (Fra) bt Aryan Goveas 6-4, 6-1; 4-Sasi Kumar Mukund bt Anvit Bendre 6-4, 6-7 (3), 6-3; 5-Mohit Mayur Jayaprakash bt Niki Kaliyanda Poonacha 6-1, 7-5.

Doubles (1st round): Haadin Bava / Tejas Chaukulkar 6-1, 6-4; 4-Shotaro Goto (Jpn)/ Kazuma Kawachi (Jpn) bt Rohan Bhatia /Abdullah Shakh 6-1, 6-3; Maninder Singh / Siddarth Vishwakarma bt Rahul Robinson Manoah / Ribhav Ravikiran 6-3, 6-1.