Gajjar-Raja advance to the second round of Chandigarh ITF

Rohan Gajjar and Purav Raja advanced to the doubles second round of the USD 10,000 ITF tennis event after registering a comfortable straight sets victory at the CLTA stadium in Chandigarh on Monday.

The third-seed pair beat Vijayant Malik and Yannick Nelord 6-4, 6-2 in the first round match.

Local challenger Malik has a daunting task ahead as he faces India's top singles player in Rohan Bopanna in the singles first round tomorrow.

Wild card pair of Yuki Bhambri and Kamala Kannan quelled the challenge of Japanese combine Katsushi Fukuda and Kento Takeuchi 6-4, 6-7 (7), 10-8 to advance to the second round.

Davis Cupper Harsh Mankad and Rupesh Roy also won their first round encounter easily against N Vijay Sundar Prashanth and Ranjeet Virali Murugesan, whom they beat by 6-1, 6-3.

However, it was a bad start for India in singles Vijay Kannan went down 3-6 4-6 against third seed Hyun-Woo Nam of Korea in the first round clash.

Earlier, five Indians including national grass court champion Vishnu Vardhan, made the main draw through qualifying rounds.

Virali Murugesan, Rupesh Roy, Siriluethaiwattana P and Mithun Murali made the main draw after wining their qualifying matches.

Murali caused an upset by stunning Chinese second seed Ye Du in straight sets 6-4, 6-2 while Vardhan ended the challenge of Idan Rosenberg of Israel 6-3, 7-6 (4).

Murugesan outplayed Prajnesh Gunneswaran 6-0, 6-2.

Rupesh Roy faced a stiff resistance from Chinese Qi Xiao in a 3-6, 6-3 7-6 (6) victory.

Siriluethaiwattana came from behind to beat N Vijay Sunder Prashanth 2-6, 6-4, 6-3.