Second seed Ashutosh Singh and fifth ranked Vivek Shokeen scripted identical facile victories to romp into the second round of the Indian Oil Servo National Grasscourt Championships in Kolkata on Tuesday.
National Hardcourt champion Ashutosh took only 50 minutes to snuff out a feeble challenge from Assamese qualifier Kaushik Das 6-1 6-1 in a completely one-sided opening round battle on a day when results tallied with rankings at the Calcutta South Club.
Fellow Delhiite Shokeen carved out a 7-5 6-2 win over Tamil Nadu's Vijay Sunder Prasanth to set up a clash for a quarterfinal berth with former Davis Cupper Harsh Mankad.
Maharashtra's Mankad, back after a year-long injury lay off and playing with a wild card, tamed Divyanshu Singh of Delhi 6-4 6-2 in a match that had remained incomplete on Monday.
Third seed Karnataka's Aditya Madkekar breezed past lucky loser Dhruv Kumar of West Bengal 6-2 6-3 and would now take on veteran Syed Fazaluddin, who got past Ajai Selvaraj of Tamil Nadu 7-6 (7-3) 6-1, in the second round.
On the distaff side, sixth seed Bengal's Ragini Vimal spanked wild card entrant and statemate Richa Valecha 6-4 6-0 to settle for a second round battle with qualifer Anushree Tamanna of Karnataka, who had humbled Bengal's Shivika Burman 6-3 3-6 6-3 in her maiden engagement on Monday.
Qualifier Gunuganti Janaki of Andhra Pradesh came back strongly after dropping the opening set to shut out Delhi's Vishaka Sheoran 2-6 7-6 (9-7) 6-2.
Also on the winners' list was eighth seed and former national champion Shalini Sahoo of Delhi, who ousted Karnataka veteran Archana Venkatraman in straight sets 6-2 6-4.
© 2024 Rediff.com -