Vishnu, Suraj Crash Out; Top Seed Kavcic Enters 2nd Round

Bengaluru: Indian wild card entrants Vishnu Vardhan and Suraj Prabodh lost their respective men's singles matches in straight sets to crash out in the opening round of the Bengaluru Open, here on Tuesday.

Coming into the tournament after facing an early exit at KPIT Challenger in Pune, Vishnu lost 3-6, 3-6 against Spain's Mario Vilella Martinez while Suraj was shown the door by Sweden's Elias Ymer 4-6, 6-7 in the first round of the $100,000 ATP Challenger Tour event.

"He (Suraj) was getting lot of balls back and was really fighting hard. He also showed some spunk in his approach in the second set," Elias said about his Indian opponent after the win. Suraj, who played the Australian Open Juniors, was the runner-up in the recently-held National Championship.

Elias, who is seen as someone who could rekindle Swedish hopes in tennis with Stefan Edberg being the last Swede to win the Wimbledon in 1990, kept his cool and waited for his chances to smash winners after he was lagging behind the Indian at one point of time.

Meanwhile, top seed Blaz Kavcic of Slovenia defeated Bosnia and Herzegovina's Tomislav Brkic in a tough three-setter to enter the second round. Kavcic had to toil hard to get past Brkic 6-2 6-7, 7-6 in a hard-fought first round encounter.