India Davis Cupper Harsh Mankad moved into the second round as Vijay Kannan was forced to bite the dust on a day when top seed Elgin Mikael again suffered the humiliation of a first-round exit in the $10,000 ITF Futures men's tennis tournament at the Delhi Lawn Tennis Association courts on Monday.
The ever consistent Mankad defeated Russian Sergei Pozdnev 7-5, 6-2 in an hour and five minutes while Kannan went down to Satoshi Iwabuchi of Japan 6-2, 6-2.
Mikael was handed out a 6-3, 6-4 thrashing by Croatia's Tomislav Peric. The Russian had lost in the first round of the first leg at Lucknow last week.
Ashutosh Singh, who made it to the main draw through the qualifying rounds, went down to second seed Dmitri Vlaslov of Russia 6-2, 6-2.
With the only seeded Indian, Rohan Bopanna, resting after arriving late last night from Johrat, Assam, where he was representing his employers in a domestic tournament (he skipped the first leg), the day brought little to cheer for the Indians. And the chilly weather made it worse for both the players and sparse compliment of spectators.
But that did not stop Mankad from going about his business. He looked tired and said he is yet to recover from a tough draw at Lucknow where his semifinal match lasted about three hours.
Today, however, he was helped much by an erratic display by Pozdnev. After dropping serve in the sixth game of the first set, the Russian fought back, breaking Mankad in ninth.
There were some sizzling passing shots from Pozdnev that left the Indian dumbstruck, and this was the phase when the visitor played his best tennis.
Pozdnev then gave back the set on a platter when he lost the 12th game, committing a double-fault -- seven of them in the first set alone -- and a series of unforced errors.
Mankad began the second set by dropping serve on the very first game but by then Pozdnev had lost his focus completely, thus making things easier for the Indian.
"There are certain areas which I would like to improve, like being more judicious in approaching the net and increasing my range of strokes from the in-court. These would make me a better all-round player," Mankad said later.
Kannan, on the other hand, was up against a player who is ranked 385 -- nearly 200 places above him -- and reached the Lucknow final where he lost to Todor Enev of Bulgaria, seeded four here.
Iwabuchi was clearly better equipped to handle whatever Kannan could come up with. For a change, it was the turn of Kannan, who has in the past consistently out-smarted more physically opponents with his clever change of pace, to run around the court as the Japanese treated him with a dose of his own medicine.
Meanwhile, on the adjacent courts, Tomislav Peric of Croatia won a slugfest against Mikael Elgin. After bowing out in the first round at Lucknow, things seem to have improved very little for him in Delhi.
Elgin, the highest ranked player in the tournament at 303, was even given a code violation for throwing his racket in the second set.
Both the players had big first serve, but Peric's cool stood in contrast to the top seed's volatile character which prevented him from playing his best tennis.
