Kirtane, Mahadevan advance

Our Correspondent

Indian players Nitin Kirtane and Manoj Mahadevan did well to enter the second round of the Desai Brothers-ITF Satellite tennis tournament in Pune on Monday.

Pune lad Kirtane drew on all his experience to get the better of Bert Beks of The Netherlands 7-5, 7-5 while Mahadevan, who came through the qualifiers, beat another qualifier Evgueni Smirnov of Russia 6-4, 6-4 to make the second round of this third leg Satellite tournament.

However, things were not so good for two other Indians -- Vijay Kannan and Saurav Panja, who went down rather tamely.

Eighth seeded Kannan was beaten by Alexey Gavriloy of Russia 6-2, 6-3, while Panja lost to Economidis Konstantinos of Greece 2-6, 4-6.

There were two Greek players advancing after Rovas Nikos joined Konstantinos in the second round. Nikos upset fifth seed Michail Elgin of Russia 7-6 (7-4), 6-2.

Wild card Kirtane and Bert were engaged in the best match of the day. Kirtane was broken in the eighth game of the first set but he came back strongly in the next game itself to return the compliment. He maintained his good forehand play with down the line shots to break Bert again in the 11th game and then held serve to take the set.

In the second set, games went with serve. In the 10th game, Kirtane looked like being broken as he commited three double-faults. However, he held his nerve and managed to hold as the Dutchman committed unforced errors. The close game seemed to have tightened his game and he broke immediately in the 11th game to take a 6-5 lead before holding serve to take the set and match in a little over one and a quarter hour.

Results:

Nitin Kirtane (India) bt Bert Beks (Netherlands) 7-5, 7-5; Konstantinos Economidies (Greece) bt Saurav Panja (India) 6-2, 6-4; Alexey Gavrilov (Russia) bt Vijay Kannan (India) 6-2, 6-4; Tomas Cakl (Czech Republic) bt Alexander Jakupovic (Greece) 7-5, 4-6, 6-2; Nikos Rovas (Greece) bt Michail Elgin (Russia) 7-6 (7-1), 6-2; Manoj Mahadevan (India) bt Evgueni Smirnov (Russia) 6-1, 6-4; Anton Kokurin (Uzbekistan) bt Sergei Krotiouk (Russia) 7-6 (7-3), 6-2; Or Dekel (Israel) bt Meir Deri (Israel) 6-7 (7-4), 6-3, 7-5.