CHENNAI, April 6: One player was ranked 145 and the other ranked 147. On the face of it the match should have been a close contest. What, however, transpired was a lop-sided no contest. Olive Delaitre, the 30-year-old Frenchman, simply brushed aside the fragile challenge of Davide Scala, the 26-year-old Italian, 6-1, 6-3 in the first match of the Gold Flake Open at the Nungambakkam Stadium on Monday.If anything, Delaitre should have been the underdog, ranked two places lower. On the contrary, the manner in which Scala played it seemed like he was ranked several places below Delaitre. He just had no clue as to what was going on. Delaitre did just what he pleased. With his serve clicking, and his groundstrokes and volleying accurate and sharp, he toyed with Scala in taking the first set. Delaitre broke him twice in racing to a 5-0 lead and Scala just about averted a washout by holding his serve in the sixth game.Delaitre, who is a veteran on the tour - he turned pro in 1986 - has had a roller-coaster of acareer. As recent as 1994 he was ranked in the top 50 having reached a career high of 41 three years before. He was good enough to reach the fourth round of the Australian Open in 1995. By 1996, however, he had slumped to 219 before he climbed back last year, his most notable triumph being a victory over Tim Henman at the French Open.Going by the day's showing, Delaitre, who turns 31 in June, still has a lot of good tennis left in him. This became evident as he quelled Scala's belated challenge in the second set. The Italian who has been steadily climbing up the ATP ladder - he was a lowly 627 in 1994 and 453 in 1995 - showed that his lacklustre showing in the first set was an aberration by hitting the ball fluently on both flanks in the second. Delaitre broke Scala in the first game but the Italian broke back in the fourth game to level the scores.Just as Scala seemed to find his touch, he lapsed into errors. Delaitre broke his serve in the seventh game and as a confirmation of his superiority brokeScala again in the ninth game, finishing off the match with a flowing backhand winner.Mankad out: Try as he might, Harsh Mankad just could not match the all round skills of David Nainkin of South Africa, the No 3 seed in the final qualifying round. The Maharashtra lad playing before a goodly centre court crowd did make an attempt to put up a fight and no one could blame him for not trying.But Nainkin obviously was in a different class. For everything that Mankad tried, Nainkin seemed to have an answer. To make matters worse, Mankad had difficulty in holding his serve. The fact that he was broken three times in the first set is a pointer to that. In the second set, the players traded service breaks but here too Nainkin was way ahead and it was not long before Nainkin had romped to a 6-1, 6-2 victory to take his place in the main draw.Top seed Peter Tramacchi of Australia had to beat back a game challenge from Max Mirinyi of Belarus before emerging a 6-7 (4-7), 7-6 (7-4), 7-5 winner.JoiningTramacchi and Nainkin in the main draw was Vladi Voltchkov of Belarus who made short work of National grass court champion Marcus Hilpert 6-3, 6-1.
