New Delhi: Somdev Devvarman survived a scare from wild card Denes Lukacs while Sanam Singh pulled off an upset win over sixth seed Grega Zemlja to make a stupendous start to the ATP Challenger event in Charlottesville in the United States.
Third seed Somdev had to dig deep to prevail over his Hungarian opponent 6-3, 2-6, 7-5 in his opening clash of the USD 50,000 hard court event.
Sanam, who entered the event as a qualifier, claimed the scalp of sixth seed Slovakian with a 6-2, 5-7, 6-4 win in his first round match.
Meanwhile, top seeded pair of Harsh Mankad and Treat Conard Huey suffered a shock first round defeat at the hands of local wild card duo of Cory Parr and Todd Paul.
The Indo-Philippine pair lost 6-7(1), 5-7 in a tough match.
In the Eckental Challenger event in Germany, Rohan Bopanna and his partner Rameez Junaid, seeded third, went down fighting against Austrian pair of Martin Fischer and Philipp Oswald.
The Indo-Australian pair lost 5-7, 6-3, 11-13 in their opening round of the euro 30,000 event. They got no point but earned 100 euros each.
Bureau Report
First Published: Wednesday, November 04, 2009, 15:41