Wild card entrant S Mukund continued to play a robust game as he outclassed qualifier Felix Gill of Britain 6-1, 6-0 in the pre-quarterfinals of the $133,250 Maha Open Challenger tennis tournament at the Balewadi Stadium on Wednesday.
It was as clinical as it could get, as the 27-year-old Mukund fired nine aces, and more importantly conceded only five points in all in his service games in the whole match. He was returning brilliantly and converted five of seven break points that he forced, in racing to victory.
For the second match running, Mukund did not face a single break point on his serve.
In the quarterfinals, Mukund will play third seed Aussie Adam Walton who sweated it out against Tung-Lin Wu of Chinese Taipei in the third set tie-break.
The 457th ranked Mukund had lost to Dalibor Svrcina of the Czech Republic in the quarterfinals in Chennai. The fifth seeded Svrcina retired while trailing 1-4 in the decider against Enzo Couacaud of France, unable to digest the dip in his game, this day.
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There was more cheer for the Indian camp, as the champions of the last two tournaments in Chennai and Bengaluru, Saketh Myneni and Ramkumar Ramanathan played strong at the crunch to beat the second seeds Piotr Matuszewski and Matthew Romios in straight sets.
The top seeds Arjun Kadhe and Jeevan Nedunchezhiyan combined nicely to outsmart Rithvik Bollipalli and Niki Poonacha for the loss of six games.
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