Weather woes at the ITF $25K Men’s Open

Bad light and rain played spoilsport on Monday in the qualifying round and on Tuesday, it was a dust storm followed by rain which made things difficult for everyone at the ITF $25K Men’s Open at the Ekana Sportz City here.

Only two matches of the main draw could be played on Tuesday after the ‘poor light’ forced as many as 11 matches of qualifying rounds, which should have been finished on Monday, to be played on Tuesday.

Both wild card entrants Indians Rushil Khosla and Siddharth Vishwakarma were disappointed when a dust storm followed by heavy rain stopped their first-round match of the main draw.

Vishwakarma, a two-time winner on the Asian Tennis Tour and No 6 Indian in singles, took the first set 7-6 (7-2) and was leading the second set 4-3 with a break against Asian Junior Davis Cupper Rushil when everything came to a standstill.

“It was a bit disappointing but no one could do anything to dust storm and the rains,” said Vishwakarma, who played an aggressive brand of tennis against Khosla. The two will return to the court to continue at 9.30 am on Wednesday.

Even before the weather could intervene, top-seeded Nam Hoang Ly of Vietnam kicked off his campaign with a win, crossing the first-round hurdle for the first time on Indian soil after making first-round exits in three consecutive events at Chennai, Bengaluru and Pune. After winning the first set in a tie-break against the USA’s Dali Blanch 7-6 (7-3), the 26-year-old right-hander easily won the second set 6-3. The tie lasted a little over 90 minutes.

For seventh-seeded Ukranian Eric Vanshelboim, the first-round tie turned out to be the easiest one as Spanish opponent David Perez Sanz retired only after playing just one game. But the win of India’s Yash Chaurasia in the qualifying remained the best match of the day as Uttar Pradesh’s boy outplayed Belgian R Faucon 6-7, 6-3, 10-4 in style. The qualifying favourite Vishnu Vardhan too was shown the door by fellow Indian M Kamath with a tough scoreline of 6-7, 6-3, 5-10.

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