Bengaluru: India’s singles challenge at the Bengaluru Open ATP Challenger came to an end after Prajnesh Gunneswaran lost to top seed Jiri Vesely in a pre-quarterfinal match at the KSLTA Stadium, here on Thursday.
Prajnesh won the first set with authority but eventually made exit with a 6-3, 2-6, 1-6 defeat against Vesely of Czech Republic.
With this win, Jiri marched into the quarterfinals where he will face sixth seed Frenchman Enzo Couacaud who quelled the challenge of Australian Open doubles finalist Max Purcell 6-4, 3-6, 6-2.
“I think I went wrong somewhere at the end of the second set as I committed too many mistakes which could have been avoided,” said Prajnesh after the match.
“I just wanted to be myself and play my natural game. Although his confidence was high after the first set, I don’t know what happened to him, his game just dropped,” said the 28-year-old Vesley, whose biggest win of his career remains an upset victory over World No 1 Djokovic at the ATP 1000 Monte Carlo Masters in 2016.
Meanwhile, three Indian pairs bowed out of the doubles event with only the third seeded team of Saketh Myneni and Ramkumar Ramanathan advancing to the semifinals after getting a walkover from their opponents Steven Diez of Canada and Malek Jaziri of Tunisia.
In the other singles pre-quarterfinals, Cem Ilkel of Turkey made a superb comeback to down the big-serving Russian Evgeny Donskov 2-6, 6-3, 7-5 to set up a last eight showdown with Alexandre Muller of France, a 7-6 (4) 6-4 winner over Bulgarian Dimitar Kuzmanov in a match that lasted for three hours.
–IANS
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