Ramkumar Ramanathan headlined an exodus of seeds from the singles draw on day two of the second leg of the Bengaluru Open ATP Challenger tournament on Tuesday.
Second-seed Ramkumar lost 4-6, 6-3, 6-2 to Frenchman Mathias Bourgue for his second defeat in the opening round of an ATP Challenger in as many weeks. Bourgue is ranked 226 in the world, 42 spots below Ramkumar.
The 27-year-old Indian was joined on the way out by Hugo Grenier, Frederico Gaio and Vit Kopriva, seeded two, four and five respectively.
Eighth seed Chun-hsin Tseng, the winner of last week’s tournament, also crashed out after losing 2-6, 2-6 to Markos Kalovelonis, a qualifier from Greece.
India’s Sidharth Rawat, handed a wild card, beat Sasikumar Mukund 6-4, 6-4 for his first main draw win on the Challenger tour for nearly two years.
The results (first round, Indians unless specified): Singles: Andrey Kuznetsov (Rus) bt Vit Kopriva (Cze) 6-2, 1-6, 6-3; Mathias Bourgue (Fra) bt Ramkumar Ramanathan 4-6, 6-3, 6-2; Borna Gojo (Cro) bt Dominik Palan (Cze) 4-6, 6-3, 6-4; Johan Nikles (Sui) bt Raul Brancaccio (Ita) 6-7(1), 6-1, 7-5; Antoine Bellier (Sui) bt Federico Gaio (Ita) 6-4, 6-3; Enzo Couacaud (Fra) bt Nitin Kumar Sinha 6-1, 6-1; Alexandre Muller (Fra) bt Elliot Benchetrit (Mar) 7-5, 6-4; Jay Clarke (GBr) bt Andrew Harris (Aus) 7-6(7), 7-6(9); Sidharth Rawat bt Sasikumar Mukund 6-4, 6-4; Markos Kalovelonis (Gre) bt Chun-hsin Tseng (Tpe) 6-2, 6-2.
Doubles: Sriram Balaji & Vishnu Vardhan bt Suraj Prabodh & Rishi Reddy 6-4, 6-2; Jeevan Nedunchezhiyan & Purav Raja bt Thomas Fancutt & Jason Kubler (Aus) 6-3, 7-5.
