By IANS,
New Delhi : Wildcard Aditya Madkekar warmed up for tougher challenges with a clinical upset of fifth seed Yannick Nelord in the first round of the DSCL men’s nationals at the Delhi Lawn Tennis Association courts here Monday.
Aditya, who was the top seed in the tournament last year and has returned to the circuit after an injury lay-off, looked impressive as he downed Nelord 6-3, 6-3 in the Rs.214,000 event.
However, it was Nelord who drew first blood when he broke Aditya in the fourth game of the first set. But Aditya broke back immediately and then won four games in a row to pocket the set.
He broke an error-prone Nelord in the sixth and the eighth game of the second set to win in one hour and 25 minutes.
In other singles, top seed Ranjeet Virali Murugesan had little difficulty in overpowering A.S. Suresh Krishna 6-3, 6-3 while third seed P.C. Vignesh hardly broke any sweat in his 6-1, 6-1 victory over qualifier Javed Hazary.
Eighth seed Arjun Goutham was given a fright by 18-year-old qualifier Akash Wagh before winning 6-4, 7-6(4) in one and a half hour. The teenager made his intentions clear when he broke Arjun in the very first game of the first set. But the 23-year-old broke back in the next game and then cracked his opponents serve twice to take the first set.
Both the players guarded their serves well in the second set to take it to the tie-break. Arjun kept his nerves to win the tie-break and the match.