Top seed Rohan Bopanna's effort to avenge his last week's defeat to Peter Clarke came a cropper as the Irishman continued his dominance to win the third leg of the ITF Men's Satellite tennis circuit in Gurgaon on Saturday.
Bopanna, who lost to Clarke in three sets in the final of the second leg, surrendered even quickly today as he went down 4-6, 5-7 at the National Tennis Academy courts here.
The top seed Indian was never in his elements today and caved in meekly with some error prone tennis committing costly mistakes on big points in both the sets.
In the matchup between two big servers, Bopanna came up with 16 aces against the seven fired by his opponent but the Indian was never consistent as he lost a lot of points on his first serve.
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The second set saw a similar pattern when Clarke found the crucial break to go 6-5 before wrapping up the match.
Today's win, the second in the row for Clarke, gave the Irishman 25 ITF circuit points while Bopanna got 15.
It was a disappointing end for Bopanna, who along with Vijay Kannan lost in the doubles final on Friday.
The duo lost to second seeds Jaco Mathew and Ashutosh Singh after a three set battle 3-6, 6-3, 7-5.
The caravan now moves to Dehradun for the ITF Masters, featuring the top 24 players in the circuit, which begins on Monday.
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