Sixth seed N. Sriram Balaji brushed aside the challenge of Niki Kaliyanda Poonacha 6-2, 5-7, 6-3 in the second round of LMW-ITF Futures tournament at the Perks Tennis Centre here on Wednesday.
Balaji, a far more experienced player than his opponent, had kept himself busy playing the past six weeks in Indonesia, Thailand and Chennai. And, it stood him in good stead today.
The 26-year-old from Coimbatore served big from the start and, Niki struggled and surrendered meekly in the first set.
But Niki, who loves to play the flashy way, came back strongly to upset the calculations of Balaji in the second set. He went for some bold shots and it paid off. In fact, both players hardly rallied.
In the third, Balaji, who had got the better of his opponent in the quarterfinals of a similar tournament in Chennai last week, kept his cool to break Niki twice to clinch the set and match 6-3.
“After having lost the second, it could have been a pressure situation for me. But I was confident of my game. I knew I could pull it off as I had gone through similar situations before. Also, it was a matter of a few points and I executed them well,” said Balaji, who remained patient right through and waited for Niki to commit the mistakes.
Balaji said the windy condition also made life difficult for the players.
Later, third seed Vishnu Vardhan rallied from a set down to defeat a fighting Manish Sureshkumar 2-6, 6-2, 7-6(3).
The results (second round): Singles: N. Sriram Balaji bt Niki K. Poonacha 6-2, 5-7, 6-3; Prajnesh Gunneswaran bt Aryan Goveas 4-6, 6-4, 6-4; N. Vijay Sundar Prashanth bt Mohit Mayur Jayaprakash 6-4, 6-3; Sasi Kumar Mukund bt Kaza Vinayak Sharma 7-6(3), 6-4; Vishnu Vardhan bt Manish Sureshkumar 2-6, 6-2, 7-6(3); Sanam Singh bt Dhruv Sunish 6-3, 6-4; Sumit Nagal bt Siddharth Viswakarma 6-2, 7-6; Sidharth Rawat bt Abhinav Sanjeev Shanmugam 6-4, 6-2.
Doubles: Anvit Bendre & N. Vijay Sundar Prashanth bt Neeraj Elangovan & Niki K. Poonacha 7-6(5), 6-3; N. Sriram Balaji & Vishnu Vardhan bt Aryan Goveas & Jayesh Pungliya 7-6(2), 6-4; Mohit Mayur & Vinayak Sharma Kaza bt Haadin Bava & Shahbaaz Khan 7-6(6), 6-3; Fahad Mohammed & Abhinav Sanjeev Shanmugam bt Tyler Hochwalt & Sanam Singh 6-2, 6-3.
