Poonacha serving considered one of his thunderbolts on his strategy to a memorable win within the first spherical of the Maha Open Challenger tennis event in Pune on Monday.
| Photo Credit: Kamesh Srinivasan
Rank outsider NIki Poonacha served 21 aces and sustained a high-quality sport for two hours and 38 minutes to beat Goncalo Oliveira of Portugal 6-3, 6-7(2), 7-6(3) within the first spherical of the $133,250 Maha Open Challenger tennis event on the Balewadi Stadium on Monday.
Ranked a modest 793, the 28-year-old Niki, who had received the singles rubber in opposition to Pakistan within the current Davis Cup tie in Islamabad, got here up with the thunderbolts every time required to tame the 216th-ranked Oliveira.
Coached by Borna Bikic, who travels with him on the Tour, Niki confirmed that he had sharpened his all-court sport, although he has been extra targeted in doubles.
“I was happy to maintain the high intensity game right through the match and pull it off, even though I had chances to close it out earlier”, mentioned Poonacha.
As if this was not sufficient to heat the hearts of the Indian fans, one other Davis Cupper, the 437th ranked S. Mukund performed among the finest matches of his profession to outclass the 202nd-ranked eighth seed, Federico Gaio of Italy 6-3, 6-2, in lower than an hour.
Serving a dozen aces, two of them within the final sport when he held serve at love, and spanking two different put-aways to shut out the match, the 27-year-old Indian transformed three of 5 break factors for the scientific execution. More spectacular was the truth that Mukund didn’t let the Italian get to see one break level in the entire match.
While Poonacha will wait for the winner of the match between high seed Sumit Nagal and Yu Hsiou Hsu of Chinese Taipei, Mukund, who had made the quarterfinals of the Chennai Challenger, will play the winner of the match between Coleman Wong of Hong Kong and qualifier Felix Gill of Britain.
The fourth Indian within the singles area, Ramkumar Ramanathan will problem the champion of the Bengaluru Challenger, Stefano Napolitano of Italy, on Tuesday.
The outcomes: First spherical: Niki Poonacha bt Goncalo Oliveira (Por) 6-3, 6-7(2), 7-6(3); Tristan Schoolkate (Aus) bt Geoffrey Blancaneaux (Fra) 7-6(7), 6-3; Dalibor Svrcina (Cze) bt Philip Sekulic (Aus) 6-4, 6-3; S Mukund bt Federico Gaio (Ita) 6-3, 6-2.
