"I guess that's just me," Somdev Dev Varman said more than once on Wednesday.
He ran hard, soaked in the adulation, kept the fist pumping and rarely bowed down to the power of his opponent. When nothing helped, he admitted the shortcomings at the ATP level and left the arena smiling.
Playing in only his third ATP main draw match, the 22-year-old Indian lost the opening round to Italy's Fabio Fognini 6-3, 7-6 (8). Somdev was resuming the match at 3-6, 3-0 after it was put off to the second day when a light shower halted progress in the wee hours of Wednesday.
Varman still has nine months, at least, before he finishes college in the US and resumes career on the pro-circuit, and a wildcard entry at the Mumbai Open is helping him gauge the rift between college tennis and life on tour.
He turned on the spunk in the second set but was unable to convert a couple of set points in the 12th game.
"I though it was a lot close today," Varman told reporters. "I was just one point away from the set so I obviously backed myself to take the match into the third. I thought I had more energy than him.
"Sometimes I feel there is a lot of difference between playing college tennis and on Tour. The players hit the ball deeper and more consistently, they hold serve more consistently. But I have beaten a few top-100, top-150 guys before though not in a tournament like this. I have practiced with them before and I could hang in with them."
The match began at one on Wednesday morning, with only a handful of spectators still lingering to catch some action on a rain-interrupted day. Fognini, who beat Andy Murray in the Montreal Masters last month, pounded the ball hard and relentlessly to win the first set 6-3 in only 20 minutes.
Varman, coming on the back of a notable summer in the US, stepped up a level in the second set, not just replying to the Italian's hard-hitting ground-strokes but making a few in-roads himself. After running side-to-side in the first set he took control of the rallies and started dictating them to shoot into a 3-0 lead.
Just when he had the momentum, the clouds above also gained force to send the match into the second day.
"I don't think that's an excuse," said Varman, "Especially since I held my serve after coming back today.
"A lot of things went wrong. The serve was not good enough and I need to hit the ball deeper like these guys. The more I play at this level the better I will get. I started picking his game only towards the end ad made a couple of bad errors."
He lost his serve in the seventh game of the second set and Fognini exploited the small opening presented to him. The Italian, ranked 112 to Varman's 1035, also played sluggish towards the end and struggled with foot-faults but was able to hold his nerve and game to push into the second round, where he faces top seed Richard Gasquet.
