KOLKATA, March 12: Wild card entrant Abhinan Sanjeev of Tamil Nadu, ranked 22nd in the country, continued his dream run as he ousted Rohan Mehra 7-6 (4) 7-5 to enter the quarterfinals in the Central Excise & CGST ITF M25 Kolkata 2026, here on Thursday.
However, it was the end of the campaign for unseeded young lad from Manipur Shanker Heisnam who fought hard before going down to top seeded Luca Castelnuovo of Switzerland 7-5, 6-2.
In the opening set, Heisnam had a golden opportunity after breaking the top seed at 3-3, but failed to capitalise on the advantage as he dropped his serve in the very next game, allowing the scoreline to level at 4-4.
At 5-6 on serve, Heisnam was broken again as the world ranked 399 played strong to claim the set.
In the second, the left-handed Luca proved to be too strong for the 19-year-old wild card entrant as the former won the set 6-2.
Local lad Ishaque Eqbal failed to live up to the expectations as he could not do much against third seed from Australia, Philip Sekulic who won 6-2, 6-1 in just 73 minutes.
Siddharth Rawat, a member of the Davis Cup squad, gave a stunning display of precision and control against fourth-seeded Dominik Palan of Czech Republic, with the Indian getting past the pre-quarterfinals 6-2, 3-0 after the fourth seed conceded the match due to illness. (PTI)
