Bengaluru Open Leander Paes enthralls crowd, Prajnesh stretched

Bengaluru: A crowd of near-full capacity cheered the Indian tennis legend Leander Paes as he walked into the stadium for his warm-up, minutes before his first round of doubles match of the Bengaluru Open.

The aura of Leander Paes spread beyond the Cubbon Park where KSLTA is located as all roads seemed to lead to the venue where, the 18-times Grand Slam Champion and Olympic medal winner Paes, in all probability is playing his last ATP event on Indian soil.

Earlier in the day, his Australian partner Matthew Abden had lost a grueling three setter, each one decided via tie-breaker, to his Egyptian rival Mohamed Safwat in the longest match of the event thus far which lasted a little over three hours.

His tiredness seemed to have vanished under the shadow of Paes' presence so much so that he looked to be the dominant partner amongst the two as the duo advanced to the second round with a 7-6(2), 6-4 win over the Slovenia-China combine of Blaz Rola and Zhizhen Zhang.

Meanwhile, Indian's top ranked player and defending champion Prajnesh Gunneswaran, seeded seventh here, was stretched by Sebastian Fanselow of Germany enroute to the quarterfinals of the $162,480 prize money event as three seeds were shown the door at the KSLTA on Wednesday.

The other Indians to advance into the next rounds were 17th seed Ramanathan Ramkumar who quelled the challenge of the qualifier Abhinav Shanmugam with a 6-1, 6-3 win and Sidharth Rawat who beat Lucky Loser Rishi Redyy 6-2, 6-2.

Meanwhile, Italian Julian Ocleppo ousted 10th seed Zhizhen Zhang of China in straight sets 6-1, 6-3 while Frenchman Benjamin Bonzi sent home the 12th seed Nikola Milojevic of Serbia with a 6-4, 6-1 victory. The last seed to bite the dust was 15th seed Kimmer Coppejans of Belgium who went down to Frederico Ferreira Silva of Portugal 3-6, 6-3, 5-7. IANS

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