Leander survives a scare

Indian ace Leander Paes survived a scare before overcoming Israeli Nir Welgreen in a tough three-setter in the first round of Indian Oil-Servo ATP Challenger tennis championship, in Chandigarh, on Tuesday.

Paes beat 310-ranked Welgreen 7-5, 6-7 (1/7), 7-6 (7/1) after a gruelling match which lasted two hours, 54 minutes.

In another keen encounter, seventh seed Ladislav Svarck of Slovakia, ranked 248, was defeated by Czech Ota Fukerek. Fukarek prevailed 6-3, 4-6, 6-4 in a little over three hours.

Wild card Mustafa Ghouse and lucky loser Donavan September of USA were pitted in an interesting duel before rain interrupted the match with Mustafa trailing 6-0, 5-7, 1-5.

The match will be completed on Wednesday.

In another first round match, Prakash Amritraj went down fighting to Dennis van Scheppingen of The Netherlands. The Dutchman won 6-3, 6-4.

Paes started off well but was broken in the third game of the first set when he double-faulted. He, however, broke back in the fourth and sixth games and went on to take the set 7-5.

The second set witnessed a see-saw battle with both players exchanging service breaks.

Paes broke Welgreen in the fourth game and went 5-2 up before losing concentration to be broken in the ninth. Paes had a match-point in the tenth game with Welgreen serving but returned wide to sqander the advantage.

He was then broken in the 11th game and broke back in the next to force a tie-break which Welgreen won comfortably at 7-1.

In the decider, the players traded breaks in the seventh and eighth games. This time the tie-break went in Paes' favour and he wrapped up the match in style.

Wild card Nitin Kirtane lost his first round match to qualifier Noan Okum of Israel 6-7 (4/7), 6-1, 6-0.

Kirtane raced to a 4-0 lead in the opening set but Okum won the next five games to lead 5-4. Both players held their serves and forced a tie-breaker where Kirtane again took a 4-0 lead and closed out the set 7-4.

However, the Israeli came back strongly in the next two sets and did not give Kirtane any chance for a fightback.

Kirtane could manage just one game from the two sets.

Seventh seeded Svarck was totally outclassed in the first set as Fukarek broke in the seventh and ninth games to take it comfortably at 6-3. However, Svarck fought back in the second which was five serivice breaks.

In the third set, Fukarek took a 4-1 lead before rain interrupted play for one hour with score 5-2 in his favour.

he break did Svarc some good as he broke Fukarek in the ninth game to trail 4-5. Serving to save the match, Svarc failed once again and Fukarek entered the second round.

In other matches Gerald Mandl of Austria defeated Dmitri Tomashevich of Uzbekistan 6-4, 7-5 while Radek Stepanek of Czech Republic beat qualifier Seguei Pgdznev 6-1, 6-4.