Ghouse is lone Indian survivor

National champion and wild card Mustafa Ghouse is the lone Indian to survive on way to the men's singles second round, with a 7-5, 6-4 victory over compatriot and qualifier Manoj Mahadevan, in the ITF Satellite tennis circuit at the NSCI, in Bombay, on Tuesday.

Other Indian wild cards -- former Davis Cupper Nitin Kirtane, Vinod Sridhar and qualifier Saurav Panja -- all met their match the first round.

Bombay lad Ghouse played some attacking tennis to tame Mahadevan in 100 minutes. Both served well in the first set till Ghouse managed to get the crucial break in the eleventh game and served out the match at 7-5.

In the second set, Mahadevan counter attacked well till he lost his serve in the ninth game before losing the set at 4-6.

Madras lad Sridhar won the first set tie-break 7-6 (10-8) against German David Sherwood but ran out of steam and lost the next two sets 1-6, 4-6 before going down in one hour and 50 minutes.

Kirtane lost to Konstantinos Economidis of Greece 6-3, 6-4 in one-and-a-half hour.

Panja too put up a good fight before bowing out to Englishman Jonathan Marray 3-6, 4-6 in one hour and 40 minutes.

Top seed Artem Derepasko of Russia rallied magnificiently to oust unseeded Tero Vilen of Finland 2-6 6-4 6-1 while second seed Ivan Vada of Crotia was upset by qualifier Michail Elgin of Russia. The Russian won 7-6 (7-4) 6-3.