Chennai, Sep 2 (IANS) Fourth seed Ranjeet Virali-Murugesan was the only major casualty on the third day of the Raman Sports Trust ITF Men’s Futures tennis tournament here on Wednesday as he went down in straight sets to wild card Prajnesh Gunneswaran to enter the quarter-finals.
Top seed Vijay Sundar Prashanth made short work of Jeson Patromobon of the Philippines, while the second seed Jeevan Nedunchezhiyan blanked qualifier Prajwal Dev 6-0 in the first set and conceded only three games in the second.
The other seeded players too made easy progress to the quarter-finals as the intense heat and humidity seemed to take a toll of the competitors as none of the matches went to the third set.
Gunneswaran came up with a brilliant fight back to down Virali-Murugesan who squandered a 4-1 lead in the first set as his opponent won five games on the trot to take the first set.
Gunneswaran broke Virali-Murugesan in the first game of the second set and held serve for 2-0 lead. Though Virali-Murugesan took a medical break after the third game, Gunneswaran kept his focus to run out a deserving winner.
The results (second round): 1-Vijay Sundar Prashanth bt Jason Patrombon (PHI) 6-3, 6-2; 6-Vinayak Sharma Kaza bt WC-Basil Khuma 6-2, 6-2; WC-Prajnesh Gunneswaran bt 4-Ranjeet Virali-Murugesan 6-4, 6-2; 7-Sumit Nagal bt Chandril Sood 6-4, 6-2; Manzano Rodriguez (ESP) bt Q-Kunal Anand 6-2, 6-4; Sidharth Rawat bt Q-V Peranamallur 6-3, 6-0; 5-Mohit Mayur Jayaprakash bt Q-Tejas Chaukulkar 6-2, 6-0; 2-Jeevan Nedunchezhiyan bt Q-Prajwal Dev 6-0, 6-3.