MUMBAI, NOV 8: Mustafa Ghouse found Vinod Sridhar like a piece of sticking tape that refuses to come off the finger. Ghouse had two match points, dropped both to let Sridhar advance to the second round of the $6,250 ITF Satellite Tennis Circuit Masters at the G A Ranade Tennis Centre today.Sridhar, following this 4-6, 7-5, 6-3 win, will play his first-leg nemesis No 4 seed Radim Zitco in the round of 16 as all eight seeded players got first round byes.Manoj Mahadevan was the only one making full use of the chair umpire's stop watch, playing for two hours, 46 minutes to lose to Josef Nesticky (Cze) 6-7 (4-7), 6-1, 2-6 as other Indians bar Saurav Panja, Vasudeva Reddy, Akshay Vishal Rao, Nitin Kirtane and Ghouse advanced to the next round.Vijay Kannan stamped all over Matthis Kempe-Bergman (Swe), leaving such a deep impact that the Swede will find the imprints staying for a long time as he tries to wash off the 6-3, 6-2 loss. While Syed Fazaluddin served 11 aces to end Nitin Kirtane's not-so-pleasant stint in this Circuit 6-1, 6-1.And Vishaal Uppal, his stocks rising as the tournament progress, played ``constructively'' to destruct Reddy's one game advantage in an hour, 40 minutes 3-6, 6-1, 6-2. Staying on the baseline against his natural inkling to advance, Uppal now leads 2-1 overall against the Hyderabad player.GHOUSE GROUSE: Ghouse came back from a 2-4 deficit in the opening set to take one-third of the match 6-4. Then, with two match points at 3-5, 15-40 Sridhar serving, Ghouse had parked himself into the second round when the towing began.First was Sridhar's forehand down the line, then a backhand netted and deuce was reached. Sridhar closed the game and now shed life support to take matters into his own hands as the other two-thirds of the match looked possible.He won the set 7-5 and the next 6-3, breaking Ghouse's serve three successive times to gasp into the next round in one hour, 50 minutes.Results (country, ranking in parenthesis)Men's singles (1st round): Syed Fazaluddin (Ind, 418) bt Nitin Kirtane (Ind, 828) 6-1, 6-1; Vinod Sridhar (Ind, 693) bt Mustafa Ghouse (Ind) 4-6, 7-5, 6-3; Rohan Bopanna (Ind, 1221) bt Akshay Vishal Rao (Ind) 6-3, 6-2; Mlynarik Zbynek (Aut, 768) bt Balazs Veress (Hun, 848) 6-3, 7-6 (7-3); Vijay Kannan (Ind, 826) bt Matthis Kempe-Bergman (Swe, 1300) 6-3, 6-2; Vishaal Uppal (Ind) bt Vasudeva Reddy (Ind) 3-6, 6-1, 6-2; Van Wyk Coenie (SA) bt Saurav Panja (Ind, 874) 6-0, 6-4; Josef Nesticky (Cze) bt Manoj Mahadevan (Ind, 1300) 7-6 (7-4), 1-6, 6-2.Doubles (quarter-finals): Prahlad Srinath/ Syed Fazaluddin bt Niko Karagiannis/ Doug Abraham 4-6, 7-6 (7-2), 6-3; Sandeep/ Nitin Kirtane bt Rohan Bopanna/ Kedar Shah 7-5, 1-6, 6-4; Vijay Kannan/ Vasudeva Reddy bt Tom Chicoine/ Kunj Majmudar 6-7 (4-7), 7-5 retired; Vishaal Uppal/ Mustafa Ghouse bt Thomas Messmer/ Balazs Veress 7-6 (7-4), 3-6, 7-6 (7-4).
