Sharma ousts Giner in ITF tennis

Chennai, May 1 (IANS) Kaza Vinayak Sharma of India caused an upset when he ousted second seeded Marc Giner from Spain 6-3, 7-6(3) in the first round of the MCC-SR Subramaniam ITF men's Futures tennis tournament, here Tuesday.

Sharma showed strong spirit and consistency in the two-hour match. He took the upper hand when he broke Giner, the runner-up at Trichy the previous week, in the eighth game of the first set.

In the second set, Giner was under pressure when serving in the third game which he won on the seventh duece and again in seventh when he held serve after fifth duece. Sharma, on the other hand, served four aces in the set, three of them in the second game.

The set went into a tie-break where Sharma played solidly and with help of two unforced errors from the Spaniard, won it 7-3 for the match.

Meanwhile, other seeded players, including No.1 Vijayant Malik, won in straight sets to move into the second round.

The results (first round): 1-Vijayant Malik (Ind) bt Virien Matthieu (ITA) 7-5,6-2; Ronak Manuja (Ind) bt Krishik Divakar (Ind) 6-2, 6-3; Ajai Selvaraj (Ind) bt Elwin Anthony 6-3,3-6,6-2; 5-N.Sriram Balaji (Ind) bt PC.Vignesh (Ind) 7-6(5), 6-3; 4-Jeevan Neduncheziyan (Ind) bt Ramkumar Ramanathan (Ind) 6-3, 7-6(1); 7-Gaetan de Lovinfosse (BEL) bt Vignesh Veerabadran (Ind) 6-3,6-0; 3-Ranjit Virali Murugesan (Ind) bt Neeraj Elangovan (Ind) 6-0,6-1; Austin Karosi (USA) bt Rakshay Thakkar (Ind) 6-4(4), 6-1, 6-1; Kaza Vinayak Sharma (Ind) bt 2-Marc Giner (ESP) 6-3,7-6(3).

Doubles (first round): Kunal Anand / Ronal Manuja (Ind) w/o Marc Giner(ESP) / Mark Vervoort (NED); 4-Jeevan Neduncheziyan/Vijay Sundar Prashanth (Ind) bt Vijay Kannan /R Arun Prakash (Ind) 7-5, 6-3; Abhijit Tiwari /Ashwin Vijayraghavan (Ind) bt Peter Goldsteiner (AUT) / Austin Karosi (USA) 6-3,6-0; Gaetan de Lovinfosse / Yannivk Vandenbulke (BEL) bt Andre Gaspar Murta / Bruno Pedroso (POR) 6-2, 7-6(1); Rupesh Roy / Vivek Shokeen (Ind) bt Ajai Selvaraj / Rakshay Thakkar (Ind) 6-3,6-3.