India's Sasikumar Mukund turned a giant killer upsetting third seeded Mohameed Safwat of Egypt in straight sets to storm into the quarterfinals of the Chennai Open ATP Challenger 80 tennis tournament Thursday.
In another pre-quarterfinal match, top-seeded Prajnesh Gunneswaran stamped his class outplaying fellow Indian Arjun Khade 6-4, 6-2 to reach the last eight stage.
It was the 16th seeded young Mukund who stole the show as he played with lot of confidence to down Safwat, an experienced campaigner, 6-3, 6-4.
The 22-year old Mukund started well, serving an ace in his opening game and the two players held serve till 2-all.
After recovering from a spot of bother down 15-30 in the fifth game with two aces, the Indian capitalised on a shaky game from Safwat to break serve and then wrapped up the set 6-3.
Growing in confidence, Mukund got an early break in the second set and then held serve throughout to secure the upset win to face Brydan Klein of Great Britain.
In the other tie, Gunnerwaran served with confidence and displayed a higher degree of consistency to outgun Khade in straight sets.
Khade's serve appeared to let him down and was broken thrice in the match.
Gunneswaran will now face James Duckworth of Australia, the No.7 seed, who edged out Gastao Elias of Portugal (seeded 9) in a two-and-a-half hour encounter.
Britain's Klein pulled off an upset, getting the better of sixth seed Soonwoo Kwon of Koera 6-4, 4-6, 6-3.
The other Indian in the fray, Saketh Myneni, the 11th-seed, went down 3-6, 6-7 (3) to fifth-seeded Alejandro Davidovich Fokina.
Results: Mens Singles: Pre-quarterfinals: Alejandro Davidovich Fokina (ESP-X5) beat Saketh Myneni (Ind-X11) 6-3, 7-6(3); Andrew Harris (Aus) beat Gianluca Mager (Ita) 7-6(2), 7-6(2); Nicola Kuhn (ESP-X10) beat Duckhee Lee (Korea-X8) 6-4, 6-4; Sasikumar Mukund (Ind) beat [3] Mohamed Safwat (EGY) 6-3, 6-4.
James Duckworth (Aus-X7) beat Gastao Elias (Por-X9) 4-6, 7-5, 7-5; Corentin Moutet (Fra-X2) beat Laurynas Grigelis (Ltu-X14) 6-2, 6-2; Brydan Klein (GBR) beat Soonwoo Kwon (Korea-X6) 6-4, 4-6, 6-3; Prajnesh Gunneswaran (X1) beat Arjun Kadhe 6-4, 6-2.
Doubles: Quarterfinals: Tomislav Draganja (Croatia) and Tsung-Hua Yang (Taipei-X2) beat Nam Hoang Ly (Vietnam and Sumit Nagal (Ind) walkover; Gianluco Mager and Andrea Pellegrino (Italy) beat N Vijay Sundar Prashanth (India) and Rubin Statham (NZL) 6-3, 6-1.
Matt Reid and Luke Saville (Aus-X1) beat Sidharth Rawat and Manish Sureshkumar (Ind) 6-2, 6-2; Andre Goransson (Sweden) and Harri Heliovaara (Finland) beat Ivan Gakhov and Alexander Pavlioutchenkov (Russia) 6-3, 6-4.
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