Madura topples Asha, Shokeen struggles against Nelord

New Delhi, Oct 9 (UNI) Coimbatore girl Madura Ranganathan pulled off the first major upset when she defeated fifth seed Asha Nandakumar 6-2, 6-2 in the first round of the women's singles in the DSCL Open National tennis championship here today.

Madura, who is playing her final year in the juniors' section, had not come into the match with too many expectations. Daughter of the well-known coach Elango, the diminutive Madura played with consistency for an easy win.

The DLTA centre witnessed plenty of action as matches in ladies singles, men's singles and boys' under-18 were gone through with clinical efficiency.

In the men's section, attention was riveted on the match between Vivek Shokeen and Delhi's Yannick Nelord.

Well-built Shokeen, who has been going through a tough patch in recent times, was in a lot of trouble as Nelord won the first set 6-3.

In the second set too, Nelord had his chances but failed to hold serve at a crucial stage. But once into the decider, Shokeen raised the level of play to force a 3-6, 6-4, 6-1 win and enter the round of 16.

For some of the better known names like Sanam Singh and Purav Raja, today was the day when they did not have to labour for winning their matches.

In the women's section, top seed Isha Lakhani had an easy time against Sanjana Kapur, winning 6-2, 6-1, while Sonal Phadke whipped Garima Vatwani 6-0, 6-3.

Important results (all 1st round): Men's singles: Divij Sharan bt Faiz Mohammad 6-4, 6-3 Purav Raja bt P C Vignesh 6-1, 6-2 Sanam Singh bt Divyanshu Singh 6-3, 6-1 Vivek Shokeen bt Yannick Nelord 3-6, 6-4, 6-1 Sandeep Choudhary bt Dhruv Kumar 6-2, 6-1 Women: Isha Lakhani bt Sanjana Kapur 6-2, 6-1 Vishika Chettri bt Deepanwita Chakrabarty 6-2, 6-3 Kesiak Jaipalan bt Naina Karsolia 6-2,7-5 Parija Maloo bt Rohini Das 6-0, 6-0 Kyra Shroff bt Chirashanta Rajur 6-1, 6-3 Parul Goswami bt Raadhae Swarupa 6-2, 6-2 Shalini Sahoo bt Neha Rana 6-0, 6-4 Vishaka Sheoran bt Nupur Kaul 6-1, 7-5 Sandhay Nagaraj bt V Poojashree 6-1, 6-2 Ragini Vimal bt Apurvika Shukla 6-1, 6-0 Madura Ranganathan bt Asha Nandakumar (Seed 5) 6-2, 6-2.

Boys under-18: Sumit Prakash Gupta bt Pushpendra Rajpurohit 6-1, 6-1 Sriram Balaji bt Daniel Raj 6-2, 6-2 Suresh Krishna bt Rahul Singhroli 6-0, 6-2 Faiz Mohammad bt Vedant Kapoor 6-2, 6-2 Akash Gujarathi bt Varun Sinha 6-0, 6-0 Palash Tiwari bt Navneetha Kannan 6-3, 6-2 Nikunj Siwach bt Keshav Patidar 6-0, 6-0 S Harika bt Ankit Sachdeva 6-4,6-4 Abhijeet Tiwari bt Ujwal Khanna 6-1, 6-0 Akshay Bajoria bt Vikas Chauhan 6-4, 6-1 Ashwin Vijayaraghavan bt Keshav 6-1, 6-0 UNI HSB PDS PM1738