New Delhi: Spain’s Ricardo Ojeda Lara, world no. 198, pulled off the biggest upset of the day ousting sixth seed Jiri Vesely of the Czech Republic in the first round of the Tata Open Maharashtra tennis tournament in Pune on Monday.
Lara won 6-3, 7-6 on the opening day of the country’s only ATP 250 World Tour event. The 24-year-old Spaniard had qualified for the main draw after winning two matches in the qualifiers and looked like the man-in-form as he won the first set comfortably. In the second, Vesely tried to bounce back but Lara ran away with a surprise victory.
However, seventh seed Mikhail Kukushkin of Kazakhstan survived a close battle against Moldova’s Radu Albot winning 6-2, 7-6. Albot had the crowd’s backing but could not match the efficiency of world no. 74 Kukushkin as the latter took the first set. In the second, Albot tried to put up a fight but Kukushkin utilised his experience to wrap up the match in his favour.
Eighth-seeded Pierre-Hugues Herbert had to dig deep to beat Italy’s Marco Cecchinato 7-6, 6-7, 6-2 to enter the next round.
World no. 85 Marton Fucsovics eased past Nicolas Kicker 6-0, 6-3 while Chile’s Nicolas Jarry beat Spain’s Pablo Andujar 6-7, 6-4, 7-5 to advance to the second round.
In the men’s doubles category, the Indian pairing of N. Sriram Balaji and Vishnu Vardhan lost to the British-Canadian duo of Neal Skupski and Adil Shamasdin 3-6, 7-6, 10-6. The home duo started the match on a strong note pocketing the first set comfortably. However, in a close second set, Skupski and Shamasdin bounced back to level the match.
In the decider, Balaji-Vardhan seemed to have lost momentum resulting in losing out in the tie-break again to concede the match.
