Bengaluru Open 2020: Prajnesh, Ramkumar make winning start at home

Top Indian singles player Prajnesh Gunneswaran won his first match in the second round of the 2020 Bengaluru Open here in the city on Wednesday. He defeated Germany's Sebastian Fanselow 6-2, 4-6, 6-4 to enter the third round of the tournament. Prajnesh is joined by his fellow Indian Ramkumar Ramanathan who defeated his compatriot AS Shanmugam 6-1, 6-3 in the second-round clash.

The two Indian players will play their pre-quarter matches on Thursday against their respective opponents. Prajnesh will be up against France's Benjamin Bonzi while Ramkumar will face Ilya Ivashka of Belarus. Sumit Nagal will also be playing his Round of 16 match against Slovenia's Blaz Rola.

In other results on Wednesday, Sidharth Rawat defeated fellow Indian Rishi Reddy in straight sets to move to the next round. The Indo-Australian pair of Saketh Myneni and Matt Reid defeated the Indian duo Nikshep Ballekere Ravikumar and Vasisth Cheruku 6-3, 6-1. Mayneni and Reid are up against the top-ranked pair of Hsieh Cheng-peng and Denys Molchanov on Thursday.

Leander Paes

The doubles specialist Leander Paes had partnered with Matthew Ebden as they went on to win against Blaz Rola and Zhizhen Zhang 7-6(7-2), 6-4. They will now face third seed Andre Goransson and Christopher Rungkat. The Goransson/Rungkat pair had earlier defeated the Indian duo Prajnesh Gunneswaran and Sumit Nagal in the first round match.

The fourth day of the tournament will also see Saketh Myneni face Thomas Fabbiano in the men's singles match while Purav Raja and Ramkumar Ramanathan take on Nikola Milojevic/ Frederico Ferreira Silva in the doubles encounter. Top-seeded singles player Stefano Travaglia will face the 14th seed Mohamed Safwat of Egypt in the Round of 16 clash.

The pre-quarters have six Indian singles players playing their respective matches while the doubles will see one all Indian team and two Indo-Australian pairs play quarters.

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