Ghouse survives a scare

A distraught Bopanna summed up his failure thus: “I just lost focus late in the second set and the third.”

India’s Vijay Kannan (ranked 875 in the World) consumed over two hours to deflate Frenchman Gwenrael Gueit (rank 1008) 7-6 (7-3), 2-6, 7-6 (7-4) in another first round match.

Kannan, broken in the second game of the first set, broke back in the third before winning on tiebreak. The high point of the set was Kannan’s resilience. Hitting with gusto and finding the lines with regularity, he saved five set points to force the tiebreak.

After a no-show in the second, Kannan hit a low in the third game, messing up some rudimentary shots which helped Gueit go up by a break (2-1). The Indian then fought back in the fourth with the aid of some well-executed groundstrokes to put the set back on serve. In the tiebreak that followed, Gueit made Kannan’s task easier, failing to get a number of his first serves in.

Second-seeded Per Thornadtsson (Sweden) brushed aside Pathanjali Ravishankar (India) 6-4, 6-4. Barry Fulcher was the other first round winner, decimating Vijendra Laad (India) 6-3, 6-3.

Results (seedings in prefix; belong to India unless mentioned)

Men’s singles (I round): 5-Barry Fulcher (Britain) bt Vijendra Laad 6-3, 6-3; Mustafa Ghouse bt Rohan Bopanna 4-6, 7-6 (7-4), 6-2; 2-Per Thornadtsson (Sweden) bt Pathanjali Ravishankar 6-4, 6-4; Vijay Kannan bt Gwenrael Gueit (Fra) 7-6 (7-3), 2-6, 7-6 (7-4).

Final qualifying rounds: Gavrilov (Rus) bt Ashok Raju (Ind) 6-1, 6-1; John Rom (US) bt Nathan McLain (US) 6-2, 6-2.