Malik, national champion Mohit bite dust on day one

New Delhi: An unfit Vijayant Malik fell by the way side on day one of the ITF Futures singles event as the fourth seed retired mid-way in his opening round against Sidarth Rawat, here.

Malik, who played Davis Cup tie against Korea, was trailing 2-6 4-4 when he opted out of the contest at R K Khanna tennis stadium. Malik was laid low by food poisoning yesterday but took to the courts, trying to fight his way. However he felt low on energy during the contest and when found the going tough, he conceded the match. "It`s frustrating. I did not feel like fighting. I felt helpless, did not have any energy to fight, so opted out of the match," Malik said after the match. "I will now travel to Thailand next week for tournaments," he added Mohit Mayur Jayapraksh, who won national hard court championship last month on these very courts, bowed out with a 3-6 2-6 defeat against seventh seed Karunuday Singh. Third seed N Sriram Balaji swept aside the challenge of Rishab Agarwal 6-3 6-4 to set up a second round clash with Ramkumar Ramanathan. Ramanathan recorded a 6-3 6-1 win over wild card Garry Tokas. Top seed and title favourite Yuki Bhambri will open his campaign against Uzbekistan`s Shonigmatjon Shofayziyev tomorrow. Yuki last week won Challenger tournament in Traralgon in Australia and this tournament will give him practice before Australian Open wild card tournament in China next week. Second seed and former national champion Jeevan Nedunchezhiyan faces Vignesh Peranamallur in his first round match. Meanwhile, in the doubles event, the local wild card pair of Ashutosh Singh and Vishnu Vardhan shocked third seeds Jannis Liniger of Switzerland and N Prashanth 4-6 7-6 (5) 10-8 to storm into the quarter-finals. The top seeded pair of Balaji and R Virali Murugesan beat the Indo-American wild card pair of Karunuday and Amrit Narasimhan 6-3 6-2 to move to the last-eight. Second seeds Ramanathan and Ashwin Vijayragavan also sailed into the quarterfinals with an easy 6-1 6-2 win over Kumara P Saradhi Adavelly and Vignesh Peranamallur.