Top seed Carlos Moya of Spain and defending champion Paradorn Srichaphan advanced to the pre-quarterfinals with authoritative wins, while Indian wild card entrant Karon Rastogi put up a brief fight before crashing out in the first round of the singles main draw match of the Tata Open in Chennai.
Third seeded Sjeng Schalken too moved into the next round, but not before surviving some anxious moments against fighting qualifier Danal Udomchoke of Thailand in straight sets.
Moya breezed past qualifier Noan Okun of Israel with a fluent 6-3 6-4 win and Srichaphan, the second seed, blew away Albert Montaines of Spain 6-1 6-3. Schalken was made to sweat it out for his 6-4 7-5 victory by the Thai number two.
Rastogi, who along with Prakash Amritraj and Harsh Mankad, were given wild cards, raised visions of a good fight against qualifier Julian Knowle of Austria, but wilted under pressure in the end to lose 4-6 1-6.
In doubles, the Indian pair of Mustafa Ghouse and Harsh Mankad went down fighting 4-6 6-3 3-6 to the Spanish duo of David Ferrer and Ruben Ramirez Hidaigo in a first round match.
Rastogi, the Asian Junior number one, served well and never hesitated to come to the net and win points as the rivals held their serves till the ninth game.
Serving 4-4, he made a couple of unforced errors to be down 30-40. He saved one break point, but hit a forehand smash out and a backhand down the line just wide to concede the all-important break, which saw the Austrian serving out for the set in the next game.
Rastogi began shakily in the second set, being broken in the first game, as Knowle, who won the doubles title here last year with Michale Kohlman of Germany, took complete control. In fact, Rastogi held his serve only once in the fifth game.
Rastogi became the fourth Indian to be beaten by Knowle, the others being Ajay Selvaraj, Mustafa Ghouse and Vishal Punna who lost to him in the qualifiers.
The Indian challenge is now left to Prakash Amritraj, who will face either Frenchman Thierry Ascione or Rafael Nadal of Spain.
World No.11 Srichaphan, who won the title last year without losing a set, was in devastating form as he exhibited good all-round tennis to overpower lower-ranked Montanes in just about 45 minutes before a moderate centre court crowd.
Taking full control, Srichaphan broke his rival in the third, fifth and seventh games as Montanes never found his rhythm to pose any realistic challenge to the defending champion.
The second set was not any different and Srichaphan grew in confidence and broke the Spaniard in the second game before racing to a 4-1 lead from where he never looked back.
After the match, Srichaphan said, "I hit the ball well and moved well. I didn't serve too bad. I got here early and I have had four days practice. It's good to get a win first up and I'll try to keep it rolling and keep hitting them like I did today."
Moya, the former World No.1, top seeded here, hardly broke a sweat in disposing of Israeli journeyman Noam Okun. Moya, who was in an awesome serving form, went 5-0 up in no time in the first set, breaking his rival in the second and fourth game.
Though Moya himself lost his serve in the sixth game, the Mallorca based Spaniard recovered in time to stylishly serve out the set in the ninth game with four booming serves.
In the second set, Okun found his bearings but was not consistent enough in his groundstrokes to really trouble Moya, who is making his third appearance in Chennai. Moya achieved a crucial break in the fifth game of the second set as Okun made some backhand unforced errors.
Moya, who became the first Spaniard to be the world number one in 1999, will now face Paul Godidstein of USA, while Srichaphan takes on Harel Levy of Israel in the next round matches.
"It's never easy to play the first match of the year as it takes some time to find your rhythm. I started well and my serve helped me a lot," said Moya.
