Pune:
Somdev Devvarman suffered yet another early defeat but Saketh Myneni continued his impressive run by storming into the singles quarter-finals of the ATP Pune Challenger tournament, here on Wednesday.
Third seed Somdev, who is enduring a tough season, lost 3-6 6-7(3) to Czech Adam Pavlasek in one hour and 35 minutes for his second successive second-round defeat in the home Challenger events.
27-year-old Myneni, winner of last week’s Indore Open, knocked out fifth seed and higher-ranked seed Japanese Hiroki Moriya 6-1 6-2 in just 55 minutes.
In a repeat of last week’s final, Myneni will now fight it out with top seed Kazak Aleksandr Nedovysov.
Also advancing to the quarterfinals was India number two player Yuki Bhambri, who fought past Belgium’s Germain Gigounon 7-5 6-4 in one hour and 29 minutes. Yuki is now up against Japanese fourth seed Yuichi Sugita.
However, in the bottom-half of the draw, it was end of road for Sanam Singh, national hard-courts champion Vishnu Vardhan and qualifier Vijay Sundar Prashanth.
Sanam was outplayed 1-6 2-6 by Adrian Menendez-Maceiras while Vardhan went down fighting 2-6 6-3 3-6 against eighth seed Kimmer Coppejans, also from Spain.
Prashant was ousted 0-6 6-7(5) by second seed Alexander Kudryavtsev.
In the doubles, Somdev and Prashanth pulled off an upset win over top-seeded Thai pair of Sanchai and Sonchat Ratiwatana 6-7(4) 3-6 to move to the semifinals.
