One-sided ties mark opening

CHENNAI, March 25: Expectedly, given the lop-sided nature of the draw, one-sided matches marked the opening day of the Indianoil Servo Invitation tennis tournament at the Krishnan Tennis Centre on Wednesday. The fact that all the four matches took a total playing time of just over three hours best illustrates the trend.

Just one match 8212; that between Vinod Sridhar and Meenakshisundaram 8212; came close to being a contest which the former won 6-3, 6-3. The other three matches were over in double quick time. Top seeded Marcus Hilpert breezed past S Ganesh, a trainee at KTC 6-0, 6-1 in 35 minutes. Second seeded Gaurav Natekar also brushed aside the fragile challenge from Rajkumar Gopalan, another KTC trainee in precisely the same time 8212; 35 minutes 8212; 6-1, 6-0.