Prajnesh Gunneswaran sailed past Cem Ilkel of Turkey 6-3, 6-1 in the first qualifying round of Roland Garros on Monday.
In the second round, Prajnesh will play Aleksandar Vukic of Australia who recovered from the brink of defeat to beat Carlos Alcaraz of Spain in three sets.
Two other Indian players, Sumit Nagal and Ramkumar Ramanathan lost in contrasting ways. Sumit, with a memorable second round against the eventual champion Dominic Thiem at the US Open behind him, fought well against Dustin Brown of Germany. Ramkumar playing his first match after the lockdown had a late flourish against Tristan Lamasine of France.
In the women’s first qualifying round, Ankita Raina will face Jovana Jovic of Serbia.
The results:
Men (qualifying singles first round): Tristan Lamasine (Fra) bt Ramkumar Ramanathan 7-5, 6-2; Prajnesh Gunneswaran bt Cem Ilkel (Tur) 6-3, 6-1; Dustin Brown (Ger) bt Sumit Nagal 7-6(4), 7-5.
$25,000 ITF men, Jablonec Nad Nisou, Czech Republic
Qualifying singles (second round): Patrik Rikl (Cze) bt Arnav Alok Goes 6-2, 6-2; First round: Pawel Cias (Pol) bt Adil Kalyanpur 6-4, 6-2; Arnav Alok Goel w.o. Pit Malaszszak (Ger).
