
MUMBAI, Oct 10: Rahul Gandhi, Basapparav K and Saurav Panja qualified for the 6250 State Bank of India ITF Satellite tennis tournament at the Maharashtra State Lawn Tennis Association courts today.
The three qualifiers joined the 16 direct entries and four wild cards in the main draw of the tournament set to commence on Monday. Gandhi beat Andrew Ford GBR 6-2, 6-0 while Panja scored over Kan Bargimath Ind who conceded when trailing 3-6, 5-5. K Basapparav went through when Barth George USA retired while trailing at 3-6.
Meanwhile, Vishaal Uppal of Delhi was given a wild card into the main draw instead of Mustafa Ghouse, who got a wild card to play the qualifiers. Ghouse made the second round with a 6-4, 7-6 7-3 win over Rohan Bopanna today. The other wild cards are Vasudeva Reddy, Vinod Sridhar and Ravi Kiran Bhat.
Due to the withdrawal of four players from the main draw, the number of qualifiers have been increased from eight to 12 to complete the draw of 32.Results qualifying final round:Rahul Gandhi Ind, TN bt Andrew Ford GBR 6-2, 6-0; Bem Guzdelak GBR bt Kamala Kannan Ind, TN 6-2, 5-7, 6-3; Saurav Panja Ind, WB bt Kan Bargimath Ind 6-3, 5-5 conceded; K Basapparav Ind, Kar bt Barth George USA 6-3, retired.
First round: Mohammed Yaseer A Ind, AP bt Ali Intichab Ind, Mah 6-2, 6-0; P Sreenivasan Ind, Kar bt Choudepalli DA Ind, Kar 6-3, 6-4; Any Fahlke Ger bt Sunderesh Ind, Kar 6-1, 6-2; Radhakrishnan A Ind bt Sunderaraju Ganesh Ind, TN 6-4, 7-5; Arun Avinash Ind, TN bt Kedar Shah Ind, Mah 6-2, 6-2; S Zaman Ind, WB bt Rishi Sridhar Ind, TN 6-4, 6-1; Mustafa Ghouse Ind, Mah bt Rohan Bopanna Ind, Mah 6-4, 7-6 7-3.