India No 2 Sasikumar Mukund and India No 4 Sumit Nagal were among three Indians to advance to the second and final round of qualifying at the Chennai Open ATP Challenger 100 tournament at the SDAT Tennis Stadium.
Mukund, seeded No 9 in the qualifying draw, defeated fellow Indian Sidharth Rawat 6-4, 6-2 in one hour and 23 minutes and will face qualifying top seed Jason Jung on Monday for a main draw berth.
Nagal, who has been as high as No 122 in the world rankings, scored a 6-1, 6-3 win over Australia’s Calum Puttergill in one hour and 11 minutes and will meet South Korea’s Ji Sung Nam.
Another Indian, Digvijaypratap Singh, came from a set and a break down to upset 10th seed Akira Santillan 2-6, 6-4, 6-1 in just under two hours and move into the final round of qualifying where he will clash against third seed James McCabe.
The three Indians will be hoping to join countrymen PrajneshGunneswaran and Ramkumar Ramanathan, who received wild card entries, in the 32-player main draw.
Players need to win two rounds to secure one of six qualifying berths available. Besides the final round qualifying matches, Monday will also see the kick-off of the main draw with five first round matches scheduled.
Top seed Chun-Hsin Tseng, of Chinese Taipei, will meet Croatia’s Nino Serdarusic in the final match on Centre Court on Monday. Third seed Sebastian Ofner, of Austria, is also in action as he plays Seong-chan Hong, of Korea.
The tournament is being organized by the Tamil Nadu Tennis Association (TNTA) and entry for spectators is free throughout the entire week.
Below is a list of all the first round results in the qualifying draw
