Mahadevan struggles to get
past Vishal Punna

National grasscourt champion Manoj Mahadevan rallied strongly after losing the first set to get the better of Vishal Punna and enter the second round in the Indian Oil 'Servo' ITF Masters tennis tournament in Bangalore on Monday.

Manoj won 6-7 (7-4), 6-4, 6-4 after a 153-minute battle to set up a meeting with Japan's Arimoto Naoki, who downed Somdev Dev Varman of India 6-3, 6-3 in another first round match.

Former Indian Davis Cupper Vishal Uppal was also forced to go through the distance, being extended by Rishi Sridhar in another first round match before prevailing 6-3, 4-6, 6-2 in a 105-minute duel.

However, Shivang Mishra had little difficulty in advancing. He posted a 6-1, 6-4 victory over Roy Sichel of Israel to set up a meeting with second seed Mustafa Ghouse, who won the Mumbai leg of the Satellie, in the second round.

With the top 24 players from the three Satellite qualifying tournaments participating in the Masters, all the eight seeds have been drawn to play from the second round onwards.

Top seed Nitin Kirtane, winner of the New Delhi and Visakhapatnam legs, will take on Tomer Suissa of Israel, who beat Claran Moore of South Africa 6-2, 6-2.

Another Indian to survive the first round was Rohan Gajjar. He struggled in the first set against Sebastian Niedermayer of Germany before emerging victorious at 7-6(7-3), 6-2.

In the day's last match, India's Jaco T Mathew frittered away the advantage of winning the first set and went down to Raviv Volkovitzky of Israel 6-0, 6-7(1-7), 1-6 in a battle that lasted a little over two hours. In the end, he did not have the stamina to outlast his Israeli opponent.

Volkovitzky will meet fifth seed and finalist in the Vishakapatnam leg, Hayato Gurukawa of Japan.

Results:
First round: Tomer Suissa (Israel) bt Claran Moore 6-2, 6-2; Ivan Syrov (Russia) bt Glunior Ghedina (Germany) 1-6, 7-6 (7-4), 6-1; Arimoto Naoki (Japan) bt Somdev K Dev Varman (India) 6-3, 6-3; Manoj Mahadevan (India) bt Vishal Punna (India) 6-7 (4-7), 6-4, 6-4; Vishal Uppal (India) bt Rishi Sridhar (India) 6-3, 4-6, 6-2; Rohan Gajjar (India) bt Sebastian Niedermayer (Germany) 7-6 (7-3), 6-2; Shivang Mishra (India) bt Roy Sichel (Israel) 6-1, 6-4; Raviv Volkovitzky (Israel) bt Jaco T Mathew (India) 0-6, 7-6 (7-1), 6-1.