Top seed Jay Clarke exits early from Chennai Open
Top seed Jay Clarke of Britain suffered a first-round exit in singles, losing to Ioannis Xilas of Greece, at the Chennai Open ATP Challenger Men’s International Tennis Championship on Wednesday. However, the top two seeded pairs in doubles — Niki Kaliyanda Poonacha/Pruchya Isaro and Saketh Myneni/Siddhant Banthia — advanced to the quarter-finals. Clarke, ranked Number 183 in the ATP rankings, broke Xilas early in the first set to take a 3-0 lead.
But the 24-year-old Xilas struck back strongly, breaking serve and controlling the match to register a 6-4, 6-4 win. In another first-round singles match, Indian qualifier Aryan Lakshmanan competed strongly in the opening set before going down to Poland’s Maks Kasnikowski 5-7, 2-6. In second-round singles action, India’s Mukund Sasikumar won the first set before losing to Kazakhstan’s Denis Yevseyev 6-3, 2-6, 3-6. Yevseyev was joined in the quarter-finals by second seed Federico Agustin Gomez of Argentina, who defeated Italy’s Lorenzo Carboni 6-3, 6-4.
In doubles, top seeds Poonacha/Isaro, who made their Grand Slam debut at last month’s Australian Open after winning the Asia-Pacific Wildcard Playoff, defeated Indian pair Sai Karteek Reddy Ganta/Digvijaypratap Singh 6-4, 6-2 to reach the last eight stage. We executed our game with high energy and controlled the points.
