Kannan, Laad bite the dust

Tamil Nadu's Vijay Kannan and eighth seed Vijendra Laad of Maharashtra were forced to bite the dust in the men's singles opening round matches in the Senior National grasscourt tennis championships in Calcutta on Monday.

Second seeded Kannan, who was losing finalist last year, failed to find his bearings at crucial moments and went down 6-7 (4-7), 6-7 (1-7) to Maharasthra's Rohan Bopanna at the South Club lawns.

The lower-ranked Bopanna was confidence personified as he rode on his powerful serve to demolish his opponent in 75 minutes.

S K Shivsankar of Karnataka pulled off the other upset of the morning, humbling Laad 7-6 (7-4), 6-3 after a 100-minute struggle, to sail into the second round.

Seventh seed Mustafa Ghouse of Maharashtra had little difficulty in prevailing over qualifier Abhisekh Jagnani of West Bengal 6-4, 6-0 while wild card Tamil Nadu's Kamala Kannan breezed past Maharashtra's Kedar Tembe 6-3, 6-3 in other opening round matches.

Wild card and Delhi boy Shivang Mishra also had a relatively easy passage to the second round getting past C D Ajay of Karnataka 6-4, 6-4 while Kamlesh Shukla of Uttar Pradesh had to sweat it out before carving out a 6-1, 6-7 (6-7), 6-3 victory over Tamil Nadu's Avinash Arun.

The hosts also had something to cheer about as Anand Radhakrishnan fought a grim battle to finally prevail over Ananth Sitaram of Andhra Pradesh 6-7 (5-7), 6-3, 6-1.