Pune, Oct 1 (IBNS) Sharan Rajani made the most of his luck by making it to the second round in the Under-16 boys section of the All India (Under-14 and 16) Ranking Retail Concepts Championship Series Tennis Tournament 2012 , organised by City Blog and Om Dalvi Memorial Trust, at Deccan Gymkhana on Monday.
The Maharashtra-lad Sharan, who got into main draw as lucky loser, got the better of qualifier Piyush Salekar 9-4.
Lucky loser is a player who has already lost in the final qualifying round, but gets picked up by a lottery system, in case of a main draw player withdrawing, or not showing up at the last moment.
Sharan made the most of the opportunity he got, beating Piyush quite comfortably, ensuring that he gets some ranking points.
Sunny Khandare and Sidhant Banthia justified the wild-cards given to them by the organisers in the boys Under-16 section, as they both made it to the second round with ease.
The Under-16 section also had the first seed of the tournament fall by the way side.
Goa-lad Tejas Shewde took total control and knocked out eighth seed Vatsingh Thakkar (Maharashtra) 9-2 in a completely one-sided affair.
In the boy’s Under-14 section, K Sampath downed Brijesh Mangodkar of Maharashtra 9-3 in a battle of two ‘lucky losers’ to advance into the last-16.
Kumaran Bharath (NIS) continued his winning streak from the qualifiers by winning a dual of two qualifiers.
Bharat got the better of Meghbhargav Patel (Maharashtra) 9-1.
In the girls section, all seeded players advanced without much ado.
Mallika Karmarkar, however, had the unique distinction of emerging the only qualifier to advance to the next round.
In the girls Under-14 section, Mallika beat Celine Maria 9-8 (7-2) in a tough battle.
Heavy rain late evening forced several matches to be postponed to Tuesday.
