On the other hand, Sridhar said he just played his normal game. Sixth seed S Zaman (WB) was another seed to crash out. He lost to the talented Rohan Bopanna (Mah) 4-6, 6-3, 5-7.

The Kirtane cousins, Sandeep and Nitin, seeded three and four, have advanced to the quarterfinals. While Sandeep scored a facile 6-2, 6-2 win over Anand Radhakrishnan (WB), Nitin's opponent, the lanky Shailesh Dhoble (Mah) conceded afer losing the first set 4-6 and being 0-4 down in the second set.

Fifth seed Saurav Panja waged a grim battle against qualifier N Mukundan before prevailing 7-6 (7-1), 7-6 (7-3) while second seed Vinod Sridhar(TN) had an easy 6-1, 6-3 win over S K Shivshankar.

The way the Vijay-Rishi match started, it looked as if the top seed would steamroll his doubles partner. But it did not turn out that way. Though Kannan took the first set 6-3, Sridhar came back strongly in the second, volleying perfectly and hitting down the line winners, to take the set at an identical score.

In the decider, Rishi was down 2-5 when he stepped on the pedal. Lobbing and serving well, he flummoxed the top seed, who seemed clueless to tackle a resurgent Rishi. From 2-5, Rishi made it 5-5, before both players held serve to send the set into the tie-break, where the Tamil Nadu boy prevailed 7-6 (7-2).

Results (PQF)

Singles: Sandeep Kirtane bt Anand Radhakrishnan 6-2, 6-2; Saurav Panja bt N Mukundan 7-6 (1), 7-6 (3); Rishi Sridhar bt Vijay Kannan 3-6, 6-3, 7-6 (2); Rohan Bopanna bt S Zaman 6-4, 3-6, 7-5; Nitin Kirtane bt S Dhoble 6-4, 4-0 (conceded); Vinod Sridhar bt S K Shivshankar 6-1, 6-3; Manoj Mahadevan bt R Narendran 6-1,6-0

Doubles: S Dhoble/Jagdish Tanwar bt S Ganesh/Prem Prakash 6-2, 6-3; Vijay Kanan/Rishi Sridhar w/o K G Ramesh/Manoj Kumar.