Chennai: India’s top singles player Somdev Devvarman choked after initially showing promise as he lost to sixth seed Yen Hsun Lu of Chinese Taipei in straight sets to crash out of the ATP Chennai Open tennis tournament in the first round here on Tuesday.
An error-prone Somdev, a wild card entrant, lost 3-6, 4-6 in 80 minutes to Lu, ranked 38th in the world.
In his first round match before a supportive crowd at the centre court, Somdev failed to raise his game in his 11th appearance in the ATP event. The 29-year-old top Indian on the ATP World Tour is making his sixth main draw appearance (5-5 record).
It was though a well earned win for Lu as Somdev wilted under pressure and surrendered the initiative after showing glimpses of counter attacking tennis.
The Indian star made mistakes and failed to finish the rallies after holding advantage. In the first set, Somdev was struck to baseline play most of the time by Lu, the top Chinese Taipei player and the Indian came up short in dealing with the situation.
In the second set, Somdev did enjoy some superiority and played some brilliant volleys and cross-court returns but he lacked consistency.
Lu grabbed the initiative to break Somdev and led 3-1. The Indian managed to hold his serve and then broke back Lu to neutralize the score to 3-3.
However, Lu waited for his chances and managed to take 5-4 lead before holding his serve to win the set and the match.
Earlier, two other Indians also bowed of the tournament with Ramkumar Ramanathan and Vijay Sundar Prashanth losing their first round matches.
Ramkumar Ramanathan paid the price of not containing his unforced errors as he made a first round exit while Prashanth also bowed out after a crushing defeat.
Ramkumar, who had happy memories of upsetting Somdev in the previous edition at this venue, suffered a 3-6 3-6 defeat in the first round at the hands of World No. 87 Japanese Tatsuma Ito. Prasanth was no match to Jiri Vesely of Czech Republic, copping a 2-6 1-6 bashing in 67 minutes.In another first round match, qualifier Aljas Bedene of Slovenia continued with his momentum as he upset world number 94 Lukas Lacko of Slovakia 7-6(7) 6-3 in 97 minutes.Ymer, who attained his career high ranking of World No. 225 last month, was a replacement to former champion Janko Tipservic of Serbia. (PTI)
