ITF Meet: Sanam, Vishnu ease into quarterfinals

CHENNAI: Top seed Sanam Singh eased into the quarterfinals of the Justice PS Kailasam ITF International Men's Tournament 2016 after a comprehensive 6-1, 6-1 victory over 20-year-old Haadin Bawa at the Powerpak Tennis Academy here on Wednesday.
Vishnu Vardhan and Vijay Sundar Prashanth, second and third seeds respectively, also did not break too much sweat and enjoyed straight set victories.While Vardhan dashed the hopes of young qualifier Alex Solanki with a 6-2, 6-3 win, Prashanth looked in total command during his match against 17-year-old Manish Sureshkumar and lost just five games to win 6-3, 6-2.
Rishab Agarwal, meanwhile, caused a minor upset when he got past Mohit Mayur in two close sets. While Rishab won the first set 6-4 after breaking Mohit's serve in the fifth game, the second set went all the way to a tiebreak. Rishab held his nerve during the crucial moments and won the tiebreak 7-4 to seal the set and the match. Sriram Balaji had a tougher time against eighteen-year-old qualifier Paramveer Singh Bajwa. Balaji won the first set 6-4, but Paramveer took a 4-2 lead in the second set. Balaji had to bring all his experience into play to break Paramveer twice and emerge victorious.
Niki Poonacha started impressively to win the first set 6-2 against Dhakshineswar Suresh.In the previous round, Suresh had knocked out fifth seed Sidharth Rawat. In the second set, Suresh held his own for the first eight games, but eventually ran out of steam as Poonacha won 6-2 to move into the last eight.