Uppal falls at the first hurdle

Wild card Vishal Uppal fell at the first hurdle, when he was knocked out in the men's singles first round by eight seed Radim Zitko of Czech Republic 4-6, 3-6 in one hour 15 minutes in the ITF Satellite tennis circuit at the NSCI courts, in Bombay, on Monday.

Other first round winners were Aisam Qureshi of Pakistan, Sergei Krotiouk of Russia and Tomas Cakl of Czech Republic.

Two Indians - Manoj Mahadevan and Saurav Panja - qualified for the main draw along with six other foreigners.

Martin Rammal of Finland, David Sherwood of Britain, Or Dekel and Tomar Suissa (both from Israel), Bart Beks of The Netherlands and Michail Elgin of Russia are the six qualifiers.

Indians had mixed luck in the doubles first round matches. Nitin Kirtane and Saurav Panja crushed wild cards and compatriats Kedar Shah and Vinod Sridhar 6-1, 6-3 while third seeds Mustafa Ghouse and Vishal Uppal went down fighting to the Russian pair of Artem Derepasko and Elgin 5-7, 4-6.

Unseeded Konstantinos Economidis and Nikos Fovas of Greece shocked second seeds Gilvert Schaller of Austria and Ivan Vajda of Crotia 4-6, 6-2, 6-3.

Results:

Men's singles (1st round): Aisam Qureshi (Pak) bt Simon Dickson (GBR) 6-1, 6-4; Sergei Krotiouk (Rus) bt Justin Layne (GBR) 6-3, 5-7, 6-2; Tomas Cakl (Cze) bt Jacob Ziv (Isr) 6-1, 6-4; Radim Zitko (Cze) bt Vishal Uppal (Ind) 6-4, 6-3.