Vishal Uppal shocks third
seed Mark Hilton

Indians had smooth sailing, in fact a couple of results came as a pleasant surprise, on the second day of the ITF Futures tennis tournament at the Delhi Lawn Tennis Association courts on Tuesday.

Sixth seeded Rohan Bopanna overcame Indonesia's Febi Widhiyanto 7-5, 4-6, 7-6 (7/5) while eighth seeded Prahlad Srinath defeated Josef Nesticky of the Czech Republic in straight sets 6-4, 7-5.

Bopanna and Widhiyanto traded breakes in the first set, the former winning the third game and the latter the seventh. But Bopanna broke again in the 12th game to wrap up the set.

Widhiyanto fought back to win the second set with a double break and kept the pressure on the Indian in the third set but choked under pressure in the tie-breaker.

Srinath stamped his class on Nesticky, stepping up his game when it mattered most. The Czech for his part seemed to be upset with quite a few line calls but he was unable to keep up with Srinath's game when push came to the shove.

As it were, he conceded breaks in both the sets when serving to stay in the match.

Vishal Uppal caused the upset of the day when he beat third seed Mark Hilton 6-3, 2-6, 6-4 to move into the second round.

The 26-year-old wild card entrant played a delightful serve and volley game, serving as many as 16 aces on his way to victory. The Briton seemed to be out of sorts, committing as many as 11 double faults.

Yesterday's report
Sridhar, Sipaeya lose in first round