NEW DELHI: Swedish pro Fiip Bergevi produced the biggest upset of Thursday as he knocked out top seed Sidharth Rawat with a 4-6, 6-4, 6-1 win in the first round of the ITF Men's $15,000 New Delhi.
Bergevi, 26, defeated Rawat, 27, in a battle lasting two hours and four minutes at the RK Khanna Tennis Stadium. Rawat won 70 points while Bergevi won 88 points.
Indian qualifier Ishaque Eqbal played his heart out and stretched last week's ITF M15 Pune winner Oliver Crawford of the USA for close to three hours before bowing out in three sets, losing 7-6, 1-6, 3-6.
After the end of singles first round, five Indians have reached the pre-quarterfinals.
Two all-Indian doubles pairs advanced to quarter-finals
Fourth seeds Anirudh Chandrasekar and Niki K. Poonacha defeated India's Chandril Sood and his Italian partner Lorenzo Bocchi in straight sets, 6-2, 6-3, in just over an hour. The top seeded team of Arjun Kadhe and Saketh Myneni won their first-round encounter against wildcard pair Adil Kalyanpur and Dev Javia 6-2, 6-3 in 55 minutes.
The second round for singles and quarter-finals for doubles will commence on Thursday.
Results:
Singles (Main draw, First Round): Arjun Kadhe [8] (IND) bt Dominik Palan (CZE) 6-3, 6-4; Nitin Kumar Sinha (IND) bt Abhinav Sanjeev Shanmugam (IND) 6-2, 6-0; Dalibor Svrcina (CZE) bt Rohan Mehra (IND) 6-3, 6-2; Alexander Kotzen (USA) bt Chirag Duhan (IND) 6-3, 6-0; Filip Bergevi (SWE) bt Sidharth Rawat [1] (IND) 4-6, 6-4, 6-1; Luca Castelnuovo [7] (SUI) bt S D Prajwal Dev (IND) 6-4, 6-3; Simon Carr [2] (IRL) bt Aryan Goveas (IND) 6-0, 6-1; Aiden McHugh [3] (GBR) bt Henry Patten (GBR) 7-6, 6-4; Manish Sureshkumar [6] (IND) bt Preston Brown (USA) 6-3, 6-3; Jonathan Mridha [5] (SWE) bt Suraj R Prabodh (IND) 6-3, 6-3; Oliver Crawford [4] (USA) bt Ishaque Eqbal (IND) 6-7, 6-1, 6-3; Marco Brugneretto (ITA) bt Siddharth Vishwakarma (IND) 6-4, 5-7, 6-4; Zsombor Velcz (HUN) bt Muthu Aadithiya Senthilkumar (IND) 6-4, 6-1
Doubles (Main draw, First Round): Arjun Kadhe (IND) / Saketh Myneni (IND) [1] bt Dev Javia (IND) / Adil Kalyanpur (IND) 6-2, 6-3; Anirudh Chandrasekar (IND) / Niki Kaliyanda Poonacha (IND) [4] bt Lorenzo Bocchi (ITA) / Chandril Sood (IND) 6-2, 6-3