Good start for Mitsuhashi

The Tamil Nadu player,who has now lost three first-round matches in three weeks,held his serve for the first time in the fourth game and then as if spurred by the momentum that he had just gained,broke Mitsuhashi in the fifth to trail 3-2,making the contest little less lopsided. But Mitsuhashi didn’t allow a dip in his own game,holding his serve to make it 5-4 and and then breaking Ramanathan for the set. Despite never being behind in the scoreline,and not being under too much pressure,Mitsuhashi had some high-aggression moments on unfavourable line calls. After shaking his head a couple of times in disbelief,he muttered: “I am having to play four points to win two points.”

In the second set as well,he broke 17-year-old Ramanathan twice – first in the second game to take a 2-0 lead and then in the eighth to take the set 6-2. “He was a tall guy so he had a consistently big serve. I had to somehow make sure that I return well on his first serve and wait for his second serve to attack,” Mitsuhashi who is aiming to top his career-best ranking of 295 this year,said.

Out for four months at the end of last year and the beginning of the 2011 season because of problems ranging from a fragile mind and to an even more fragile shoulder to a racquet company contract that he no longer wished to oblige,Mitsuhashi’s ranking had dropped to the 700s in April this year. But it seems like he just had to start playing again as he is now back in the 300’s. What could be a worry for Mitsuhashi making those numbers even lower is that he faces Brit James Marselak in the second round – the same player who beat the Japanese in Chennai two weeks back.

The only other seeded player in the singles draw to play on Monday – sixth seed Austrian Nikolaus Moser also beat Tamil Nadu’s Vignesh Peranamallur with an identical 6-4 6-2 scoreline. A couple of breaks were exchanged early in the first set but Moser’s forehand would flash past Vignesh at will at crucial moments. Vignesh was also slow off his heels for most part of the match.

Tuesday promises to be more exciting as second seed Vishnu Vardhan and third seed Karan Rastogi will be seen in action. Yuki Bhambri,who lost the Pune semi-final to Vardhan has skipped his home ITF as he is playing a Challenger series event in Japan this week.

other results: Abhijeet Tiwari beat Vinayak Kaza Sharma 6-3 7-5,Richard Becker beat Lakshit Sood 6-3 6-3,N. Sriram Balaji beat Keita Koyama 6-0 6-0,Weerapat Doakmaiklee beat Sunil Kumar Sipaeya 6-4 6-4,Kunal Anand beat Saurabh Singh 6-2 7-6 (5)