Fourth seed Mikhail Youzhny of Russia overcame a stiff challenge from France's Edouard Roger-Vasselin while the Indian challenge at the Chennai Open ended when doubles duo of Mustafa Ghouse and Karan Rastogi crashed out in the first round on Wednesday.
Youzhny battled past Roger-Vasselin 7-5, 1-6, 6-2 in the second round and could run into defending champion Xavier Malisse in the third, with the Belgian taking on Jurgen Melzer later in the day.
Indian wildcard entrants Rastogi-Ghouse failed to capitalize on their chances and lost 4-6, 6-7 (1) against the first time pairing of Aisam Qureshi of Pakistan and Marin Cilic of Croatia.
Rastogi and Ghouse were a break up in each of the sets but could not sustain the advantage.
"It was a very winnable match," said 21-year-old Rastogi later. "We had good chances; that's why it was disappointing to lose. We played a couple of lose points and they made the most of it."
The Indian pair broke the 6'5" tall Cilic's serve in the third game. The Croatian, one of the biggest movers on the ATP charts in 2007, struggled in the team game and was sluggish to start with. But Qureshi, with his serve firing well, and a deft net game kept them alive.
While Ghouse and Rastogi were solid and moved well, it was the Pakistani pulling all strings from the opposite court. An experienced doubles player, Qureshi directed a lugging Cilic, ranked 71 in the singles and 456 in the doubles, to his shots.
Qureshi-Cilic got the break back in the eighth game to capitalize on a tight service game by Rastogi. They broke Ghouse's serve, which was reliable through most of the match, in the 10th game to seal the set.
The teams traded breaks in the ninth and tenth game of the second set. But when the tie-breaker came, Ghouse-Rastogi were wiped off the court. They won only one point, when Cilic drilled a forehand into the net.
Though Qureshi and Cilic escaped the first test by their sheer quality, they face a tougher task against second seeds Michal Mertinak and Jaroslav Levinsky in the quarter-finals.
YOUZHNY SURVIVES
Youzhny is soon taking on the tag of a slow starter in Chennai.
After taking his time to start against Czech Jiri Vanek in the first round, he found himself 0-5 down in 20 minutes versus Roger-Vasselin. An out-of-sorts Youzhny looked like being blanked out from the first set when he did a complete turnaround, winning seven straight games.
More importantly after 0-5, he dropped only one point - off his own serve in the sixth game - in the next five games. He hit the ball deeper and the back-hand worked like magic. Before the mild-mannered Frenchman could make out what had hit him the set was over and Youzhny was firmly into the lead.
Roger-Vasselin avoided the nerves getting better of him in the second set, as he too stringed five straight games. Despite Youzhny threatening to pull back the advantage in the final game, when Roger-Vasselin saw his three set points turning to nil, he made the leap on the fourth.
The third set proved to be a cake-walk for the Russian, as Roger-Vasselin dropped serve in the second and eighth game to hand his opponent the match.
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