India's Harsh Mankad caused a major upset in the first round of the Indian Oil Servo ATP Challenger tennis championship in Bangalore on Monday, ousting third seed Jean-Francois Bachelot of France 6-3, 6-4.
But it turned out to be a mixed day for the host nation as the other Indian in action today, Vishal Uppal, made his exit, going down fighting to fourth seed Ivo Heuberger of Switzerland 6-3, 1-6, 6-7 (7-2).
A wild-card entrant, 23-The year-old Mankad, the world number 457, was in fine nick. He broke Bachelot, ranked 156, in the fourth game to go 3-1 up. But the Frenchman broke back and held serve to level the score, before Mankad tightened his game and won.
Bachelot failed to find his rhythm in the second set also, and gave vent to his frustration by banging his racket to the ground. Mankad, however, remained focussed and maintained his steady game to script a fine win.
The 26-year-old Uppal, on the otherhand, had his chances to surprise Heuberger but squandered them. After the two players took a set each, Uppal was leading 4-2 and 40-15 in the decider but an apparent loss in concentration proved costly for the Indian as his opponent, ranked 160 in the world, rallied to force the set into the tie-breaker, which he went on to win.
Meanwhile, second seed Frenchman Gregory Carraz, eighth seed Gilles Elseneer (Belgium), Alun Jones (Austria) and Yves Allegro (Switzerland) (both unseeded) advanced to the second round.
Carraz defeated Massimo Dell'acqua of Italy 6-4, 6-4, and Elseneer sidelined Noam Behr (Israel) 7-5, 6-1, while Jones overcame Thailand's Danai Udomchoke 6-3, 1-6, 6-3 and Allegro got past Doug Bohaboy (USA) 7-6 (9-7), 6-4.
