Jinan (China): Top seed Prajnesh Gunneswaran booked a singles quarterfinal berth at the Jinan Open tennis tournament with a hard-fought win over Chinese Taipei’s Tung-Lin Wu, here Thursday. The Indian left-hander had to toil hard before prevailing 6-4, 7-6(7-3) in the third round of the USD 1,62,480 hard court tournament.
Prajnesh Gunneswaran had plenty of breakpoints but could convert only two of the eight and dropped his serve once in the clash which lasted 94 minutes. Prajnesh Gunneswaran next faces Japanese eighth seed Go Soeda, who steamrolled Chinese Di Wu 6-1, 6-2 in the other third round contest played on the day.
Meanwhile, in doubles, three Indians will feature in the semifinals.
Top seed Divij Sharan and Matthew Ebden beat Pedja Krsten and Akira Santillan 6-1, 6-4 in just 45 minutes. They will now take on fourth-seeded Indian pair of Saketh Myneni and Jeevan Nedunchezhiyan, who overcame Hiroki Moriya and Goncalo Oliveira 7-5, 6-2 in the other quarterfinal.
However, the Indian challenge ended at the Aon Open Challenger in Genoa, Italy.
Sumit Nagal, playing his first event after the high of US Open where he took a set off Roger Federer, suffered a 1-6, 5-7 defeat to local wild card Giulio Zeppieri.
In doubles, Purav Raja and his Australian partner lost narrowly 6-7(2-7), 6-7(3-7) to Fernando Romboli and Attila Balazs.
At the Cassis Open tennis tournament in France, 12th seed Ramkumar Ramanathan lost his singles second round match 3-6, 2-6 to Germany’s Daniel Masur.
However, Ramanathan reached the doubles quarterfinal with Russian partner Evgeny Karlovskiy with 6-4, 6-1 win over fourth seed Croatian pair of Ivan Sabanov and Matej Sabanov.
PTI
