The contrast was remarkable. After labouring through his first-round contest against Karunuday Singh, it took Saketh Myneni all of 47 minutes to thrash Egypt’s Mohamed Safwat 6-3, 6-2.
The 27-year-old will meet Belgian Kimmer Coppejans in the $100,000 ATP Challenger Delhi Open quarterfinals.
On paper, it should have been a closer contest. Mohamed Safwat had accounted for the third-seeded Yuichi Sugita in the first round.
Interestingly, the Egyptian had exited the tournament at the same stage last year after besting third seed Peter Gojowczyk.
On Wednesday, the Egyptian never got to grips with the characteristically bouncy Centre Court at the DLTA Complex. There was a barrage of errors from Safwat as he failed to control the ball. This was most conspicuous on Myneni’s second serve; the Indian won 15 out of 19 second serve points.
Myneni’s serving improved from the first round too. He dropped only seven points on serve as he sought to be aggressive. In all, out of the 44 points started by Myneni, 23 were won thanks to aces and service winners.
In the day’s other matches, fourth seed Ruben Bemelmans and sixth-seeded Australian Luke Saville set up a quarterfinal meeting. Saville came through a tougher test as it took him two hours and thirteen minutes to defeat Enrique Lopez-Perez 6-3, 4-6, 6-3. Bemelmans quelled Pedja Krstin’s challenge beating him 7-6(4), 6-3.
The Belgian, however, had came very close to dropping the first set as his Serbian opponent held a set-point on serve at 5-4, 40-30. The inability to claim the opportunity seemed to weigh heavily on Krstin’s mind as he failed to reach his best thereafter.
In the first set, the Serb’s strong serve had unsettled Bemelmans. After saving a break-point in the very first game, Krstin dropped only two points in his following three service games. Bemelmans, however, responded in time by serving strongly too, not to forget his forehand that never ceased to be a threat.
The results: Pre-quarterfinals: Saketh Myneni bt Mohamed Safwat (Egy) 6-2, 6-3; Kimmer Coppejans (Bel) bt Frederico Ferre Silva (Por) 6-3, 6-2; Luke Saville (Aus) bt Enrique Lopez-Perez (Esp) 6-3, 4-6, 6-3; Ruben Bemelmans (Bel) bt Pedja Krstin (Srb) 7-6 (4), 6-3.
Doubles: Quarterfinal: Riccardo Ghedin (Ita) & Toshihide Matsui (Jpn) bt Toni Androic (Cro) & Pedja Krstin (Srb) 6-2, 6-1. First round: Ti Chen (Tpe) & Enrique Lopez-Perez (Esp) bt Kimmer Coppejans (Bel) & Luke Saville (Aus) 7-5, 6-4; Alex Bolt & Andrew Whittington (Aus) bt Ruben Bemelmans (Bel) & Ilija Bozoljac (Srb) 6-3, 6-2; N. Sriram Balaji & Vishnu Vardhan bt Radu Albot (Mda) & Divij Sharan 6-2, 7-5.
