Manoj survives the Indian massacre on Day One

Manoj survives the Indian massacre on Day One
Shailendra Awasthi

Mumbai, March 26: The poor performance of Indians in the Satellite Circuit continued here in the first round of ITF Masters tennis tourney too as only one out of the six in the frey could survive Day One at the Dr GA Ranade Tennis Centre on Monday.

Unexpectedly, it was unseeded Manoj Mahadevan who had won only a single round in the three legs and has only one ATP points, managed to take his challenge to the next round. He overcame another unseeded player Briton David Sherwood 6-3, 6-4.

National grass court champion Mustafa Ghouse, Saurav Panja, Nitin Kirtane, Vishal Uppal and Vijay Kannan all went without putting up a fight.

Barring some good display late in the first set, Ghouse never appeared a serious challenger for Dutch Fred Hemmes. After losing first set 7-5 Ghouse could only managed to snatch two games in the second.

Ghouse started awkwardly, though he fired four aces in the first four games, his shot control left a lot to be desired as he banged out at crucial points allowing Hemmes to take controll of the first set.

Hemmes had little trouble breaking Ghouse in the very first game itself in which Ghouse gave away three points dropping the ball far out. Hemmes did not tried to sweat much and stayed back to cash on Ghouse's mistakes. Soon he went up 5-1. But, he too appeared carried away as he lost control and allowed Ghouse to come back.

Ghouse broke back in the eighth and tenth game and came on par at 5-5. But, Hemmes soon settled down to break back Ghouse in the 11th with a lovely passing winner. Finally he held on to his serve in the 12th to take the set at 7-5.

Second set appeared a repeat of the first one except for the fact that this time Hemmes gave no chance to Ghouse to stage a comeback. He broke Ghouse in the first and the fifth game to race to a 5-1 lead. The Dutchman wrapped up the match 6-2 in one hour and 10 minutes

Results (seedings in prefix):
Singles (Round I): Anton Kokurin (Uzbekistan) bt Saurav Panja (India) 7-6 (7-6) 6-3; Manoj Mahadevan (India) bt David Sherwood (Britain) 6-3 6-4; Simon Dickson (Britain) bt Nitin Kirtane (India) 6-2 6-3; Nikos Rovas (Greece) bt Vishal Uppal (India) 6-2 6-2; Alexey Gavrilov (Russia) bt Bart Beks (Netherlands) 6-2 6-3; Or Dekel (Israel) bt Jonathan Marray (Britain) 7-5 4-6 6-3; Fred Hemmes (Netherlands) bt Mustafa Ghouse (India) 7-5 6-2; Radim Zitko (Czech Republic) bt Vijay Kannan (India) 6-2 6-1.