ITF men’s tennis: Eqbal upsets second seed Sinha in qualifiers

Pune, March 22 : Unseeded Ishaque Eqbal upset second seeded Nitin Kumar Sinha 7-6(6),7-6(4) to enter the final round of qualifying at the $15,000 ITF WTT Cup mens tennis championships on Sunday.

In the other first round qualifying matches, ninth seeded Chandril Sood scraped past Yash Chaurasia 2-6, 7-6(4), 15-13 while 11th seeded Suraj R Prabodh was given a tough time by local player Gunjan Jadhav before winning 6-0, 4-6, 10-8.

In other close matches, tenth seeded Faisal Qamar got past local lad Sahil Gaware 7-6(8), 6-4 while thirteenth seeded Ranjeet Virali-Murugesan registered a 6-0 ,6-3 win over Dmitrii Baskov of Moldova 6-0, 6-3.Results:First qualifying round (mens):Anirudha Chandrasekar(Ind) [1] bt Kapeesh Khandge (Ind)6-1, 6-1;Ishaque Eqbal (Ind) bt Nitin Kumar Sinha (Ind) [2] Vs 7-6(5), 7-6(4);Omni Kumar (Usa) [3] bt Jagmeet Singh (Ind) 6-4, 6-4;Henry Patten (Gbr) [4] bt Arjun Mahadevan (Ind) 6-1, 6-3;George Botezan (Rou) [5] bt Anurag Nenwani (Ind 6-2, 6-1;Rishi Reddy (Ind) [6] bt Boopathy Sakthivel (Ind)6-3, 6-0;N.Vijay Sundar Prashanth (Ind) [7] Bt (WC)Sandesh Kurale (Ind) 6-2, 6-2;Mutu Aadhitiya Senthilkumar (Ind) [8] Bt (WC)Anargha Ganguly (Ind) 6-0, 6-4;Chandril Sood (Ind) [9] bt Yash Chaurasia (Ind) 2-6, 7-6(4), 15-13;Faisal Qamar (Ind) [10] bt Sahil Gaware (Ind) 7-6(8), 6-4;Suraj R Prabodh (Ind) [11] bt Gunjan Jadhav (Ind) 6-0, 4-6, 10-8.