Divij-Purav make winning start at Mexico Challenger event

New Delhi: Aiming their second title of the season, Divij Sharan and Purav Raja made a confident start at the ATP Challenger event in Guadalajara, defeating Marco Chiudinelli and Yuichi Sugita in straight sets.

The unseeded Indian pair, who were runners-up last week at Leon, won 6-4 6-2 against the Swiss-Japanese combo in the first round of the USD 100,000 hard court event. The Indians pocketed the first set after breaking Sugita`s serve in the third game. In the second set, they further imposed themselves on the opponents with back-to-back breaks -- fifth and seventh games. Serving well throughout the match helped the winners` cause well as the Indian team did not face even a single break point. They won 84 percent points on first serve and 77 percent on second serves. In all they won 57 points to 38 of their rivals. However, they have a tough task at hand as they face third seeded formidable pair of Rajeev Ram and Benjamin Becker in the quarter-finals tomorrow. PTI