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Journalism of Courage
February 2: Top seed Leander Paes and compatriot Mahesh Bhupathi faced little difficulty in disposing of their opponents and move into the men’s singles second round of the ATP Tour Challenger Tennis Championship at the South Club here today.
India’s Davis Cupper Paes whipped Spain’s Oscar Burrieza with a facile 6-4, 6-4 verdict while wild card entrant Bhupathi got the better of qualifier Wesley Whitehouse of South Africa with a 6-3, 2-6, 6-1 victory margin.
Playing in front of his home crowd, Paes looked quite relaxed and played a controlled game to send his Spanish opponent packing in about one hour 15 minutes. Paes, ranked 93 in the ATP, will now take on Patrick Fredriksson of Sweden in the second round.
The going was slight more difficult for Bhupathi as he made a few costly error’s but raised his game again to tame his spirited opponent who had won the junior Wimbledon championship in 1997.
Israel’s Elrich Jonathan caused a major upset on the second day by stunning second seed Marcus Ondruska ofSouth Africa with a hard-fought 6-7, 6-2, 6-3 victory.
Ondruska became the third seeded player to bite the dust within the first two days of the championship. Bhupathi, playing his first tournament after losing in the men’s doubles final of the Australian Open, was down 0-40 on his serve in the very first game but came up with some powerful serves to save three break points and win the game.
He broke Whitehouse in the fourth game to take a 3-1 lead and then maintained the tempo to wrap up the first set 6-3. But Bhupathi faltered in the second set committing a number of unforced errors, allowing his opponent to take the second set 6-2 without much difficulty.
But the Indian found his touch in the decider to set up a second round clash with seventh seed Peter Tramacchi of Australia. In the other first round matches, fourth seed Mosena Varra of Italy thrashed qualifier Arvind Parmar of England with a 6-4, 6-4 scoreline to set up a second round encounter with Israel’s Noam Behr.
Pakistan’s Aisam Qureshi,ranked a lowly 773 in the world, played well to demolish the 251-ranked Joao Cunha-Silva of Portugal 6-4, 7-5 while sixth seed Andres Zingman of Argentina overcame some anxious moments before quelling Emmanuel Couto of Portugal 6-3, 3-6, 6-3.
Toumas Ketola of Finland also moved into the second round by prevailing over fifth seed Eyal Ran of Israel with a 7-6 (8-6), 6-2 margin.
