Mumbai, November 13: Pune’s Siddhant Banthia made the most of his wildcard entry by defeating the eighth seed and Davis Cup player Siddharth Vishwakarma, 7-5, 6-2, to advance to the second round of singles at the MSLTA 25K Men’s ITF Tennis Tournament. The event is organized by the Maharashtra State Lawn Tennis Association (MSLTA) and is being held at the GA Ranade Tennis Court.
Banthia took just 1 hour and 14 minutes to overcome Vishwakarma, who recently made his Davis Cup debut in Sweden. In the next round, Banthia will face Adithya Ganeshan from the USA. In other matches, qualifier Vishnu Vardhan displayed resilience, overcoming fellow qualifier Ishaque Eqbal with a hard-fought 6-4, 3-6, 6-3 victory after a grueling 2 hours and 23 minutes.
Seventeen-year-old qualifier Yuvan Nandal also moved into the second round, defeating Abhinav Shanmugam 7-6(2), 6-2. Youngster Aryan Shah battled past Dheeraj Kodancha Srinivasan 6-3, 7-6(6), while seventh seed Karan Singh ousted American player Nick Chappell with a 6-3, 7-6(6) scoreline.
Several other Indian players advanced to the second round, including wildcard Nitin Kumar Sinha, Manish Sureshkumar, Rishab Agarwal, and fourth seed Sasikumar Mukund.
Singles: First Round Results
- Khumoyun Sultanov (Uzbekistan) [1] defeated Adil Kalyanpur (India) 6-2, 6-1
- Vishnu Vardhan (India) defeated Ishaque Eqbal (India) 6-4, 3-6, 6-3
- (WC) Siddhant Banthia (India) defeated Siddharth Vishwakarma (India) [8] 7-5, 6-2
- (Q) Yuvan Nandal (India) defeated (Q) Abhinav Shanmugam (India) 7-6(2), 6-2
- (WC) Nitin Kumar Sinha (India) defeated Rishi Reddy (India) 6-3, 6-4
- Manish Sureshkumar (India) defeated (LL) Yunseok Jang (Korea) 6-4, 2-6, 6-1
- Bogdan Bobrov [5] (Russia) defeated Yuta Kawahashi (Japan) 1-6, 6-4, 6-2
- Egor Agafonov [6] defeated Udit Kamboj (India) 4-6, 6-3, 7-6(4)
- Aryan Shah (India) defeated Dheeraj Kodancha Srinivasan (India) 6-3, 7-6(6)
- Rishab Agarwal (India) defeated M Rifqi Fitriadi (Indonesia) 7-6(5), 2-6, 6-4
- Sasikumar Mukund [4] (India) defeated Sidharth Rawat (India) 7-6(5), 6-4
- Karan Singh (India) [7] defeated Nick Chappell (USA) 6-3, 7-6(6)
These results mark a strong showing for Indian players in the tournament’s early rounds.