Fourth seed Vasisht Vinod Cheruku of Karnataka crashed out of the boys' under-16 singles when he was beaten by unseeded S Manish of Tamil Nadu on day one of the Babolat 8th Ramesh Desai National Tennis Championship for under-16 and under-12 boys and girls here today.
In a first round match, Cheruku started off well by comfortably winning the opening set against his TN rival.
Thereafter, he was unable to maintain the momentum and went on to lose the next two sets as Manish played steadily to pull through winning 2-6 7-5 6-3 in the tournament organised by Maharashtra State Lawn Tennis Association.
Top two seeds B R Nikshep of Karnataka and Punjab's Paramveer Singh Bajwa did not face any major hurdle as they easily sailed into the second round.
Nikshep encountered initial resistance from Utkarsh Bhardwaj of Uttarakhand before cruising to a 7-5, 6-2 victory, while second seed Bajwa packed off Gujarat's Himanshu Mehta, winning at 6-3 6-2.
In girls' under-16 singles action, Sarah Dev of Punjab fought back from the loss of opening set to overcome qualifier Humera Shaikh of Andhra Pradesh 2-6 6-4 6-2. She will meet 5th seed Nandini Sharma of Punjab in the next round tomorrow.
In another match which went the distance, qualifier Angella Raman of Haryana showed good fighting spirit to prevail over Karnataka's Soha S 3-6 6-3 6-3, and run into ninth seed Jennifer Luikham, also from Haryana, in round two.
Results: Girls under-16: Aarja Chakraborty (UP) bt Dakshata Girishkumar P (MH) 6-2 6-4; Yubrani Banerjee (WB) bt Sonashe Bhatnagar (KA) 6-1 6-4; Sarah Dev (PB) bt Shaikh Humera (AP) 2-6 6-4 6-2; Harsimaran Kaur bt Rutvi Shah (GJ)6- 2 6-0; Urmi Pandya (GJ) bt Ganeshi Aniyaa (MP) 6-4 0-6 6-1; Dedepyaa Sai Y (AP) bt Aashta Dargude (MH) 6-3 6-3; Prinkle Singh (JK) bt Seerat Sidhu (CH) 6-2 6-1; Neeru (HR) bt Shruthi Gupta (WB) 4-6 7-5 6-4; Angella Raman (HR) bt Soha S (KA) 3-6, 6-3, 6-3, Kritika Chhabra (MH) bt Nida Shahid Kamal (MH) 6-4, 6-1; Ishita Nilay Parikh (MH) bt Shivani Manjanna (KA) 7-6(3) 6-2; Shivani Amineni (AP) bt Rashmika Rajan (KA) 6-4 7-5; Muskan (DL) bt Anand Dhar Mudaliar (AP) 6-3 6-2.
