Flawless fare puts Mukund in the quarterfinals

Mukund played an explosive all-round game to beat Felix Gill in the Maha Open Challenger tennis tournament in Pune on Wednesday.
| Photo Credit: Kamesh Srinivasan

Wild card entrant S. Mukund continued to play a robust game as he outclassed qualifier Felix Gill of Britain 6-1, 6-0 in the pre-quarterfinals of the $133,250 Maha Open Challenger tennis tournament at the Balewadi Stadium on Wednesday.

It was as clinical as it could get, as the 27-year-old Indian fired nine aces and, more importantly, conceded only five points in all in his service games in the whole match. He returned brilliantly and converted five of seven break points that he forced while in racing to victory.

For the second match running, Mukund did not face a single break-point on his serve.

In the quarterfinals, Mukund will play Aussie third seed Adam Walton who sweated it out against Tung-Lin Wu of Chinese Taipei in the third set tie-break.

The 457th-ranked Mukund had lost to Dalibor Svrcina of the Czech Republic in the quarterfinals in Chennai. The fifth-seeded Svrcina retired while trailing 1-4 in the decider against Enzo Couacaud of France, unable to digest the dip in his game, this day.

Saketh Myneni and Ramkumar Ramanathan, the champions in Chennai and Bengaluru, played strong at the crunch to beat second seeds Piotr Matuszewski and Matthew Romios in straight sets.

Top seeds Arjun Kadhe and Jeevan Nedunchezhiyan combined nicely to outsmart Rithvik Bollipalli and Niki Poonacha for the loss of six games.

The results (pre-quarterfinals):

Singles: Valentin Vacherot (Mon) bt Tristan Schoolkate (Aus) 6-1, 6-2; Enzo Couacaud (Fra) bt Dalibor Svrcina (Cze) 6-4, 5-7, 4-1 (retd.); S Mukund bt Felix Gill (GBR) 6-1, 6-0; Adam Walton (Aus) bt Tung-Lin Wu (Tpe) 6-0, 6-7(5), 7-6(4).

Doubles: Arjun Kadhe & Jeevan Nedunchezhiyan bt Rithvik Bollipalli & Niki Poonacha 6-3, 6-3; Jakob Schnaitter & Mark Wallner (Ger) bt Ray Ho (Tpe) & Calum Puttergill (Aus) 7-6(4), 6-4; Dan Added (Fra) & Yunseong Chung (Kor) bt Francis Casey Alcantara (Phi) & Kaichi Uchida (Jpn) 6-2, 6-2; Duje Ajdukovic (Cro) & Enrico Dalla Valle (Ita) bt Dalibor Svrcina (Cze) & Dane Sweeny (Aus) 7-5, 6-3; Saketh Myneni & Ramkumar Ramanathan bt Piotr Matuszewski (Pol) & Matthew Romios (Aus) 7-6(5), 6-4.