Karan Rastogi's winning run in the $25,000 Servo ATP Challenger tennis tournament in Delhi came to an end when he went down to Arvind Parmar of Great Britain 6-3, 3-6, 4-6 in the first round on Monday.
In another match featuring an Indian challenge, wild card Vijay Kannan went down to sixth seed Yen-Hsun Lu 1-6, 4-6.
Fifth seed Ivo Heuberger of Switzerland overcame Sweden's Johan Settergren 6-3, 2-6, 2-6 in a baseline slugfest while another player from Sweden, seventh seed Bjorn Rehnquist shut the door on qualifier Jonathan Marray of Britain 7-6 (7/4), 6-1.
In the other singles match of the day, Israel's Andy Ram defeated Australian Alun Jones 7-5, 6-1.
The 16-year old Rastogi, for whom competing in a high quality field in itself was an achievement -- particularly after coming through three qualifying rounds, displayed tremendous fighting spirit in the two hour and five minute contest.
Rastogi had reached the second round of the Asian junior championship in Delhi last December but the difference in him from then was the supreme confidence with which he took on his higher ranked opponent.
In these four months, he had played in the Australian Open junior championship and various grade events outside India. Obviously, watching players like Lleyton Hewitt and Andre Agassi has done a great deal to his confidence and the teenager, irrespective of the outcome of his match, had proved his potential in the last two days.
Other results (Indians unless specified):
Doubles, 1st round: Harsh Mankad/Vishal Uppal bt Tushar Liberhan/Chatwinder Singh 6-0, 6-1; Doug Bohaboy (USA)/Tuomas Ketola (Fin) bt Prakash Amritraj/Rohan Bopanna 6-4, 6-3; Dmitry Vlasov (Rus)/Radoslav Lukaev (Bul) bt Rodolphe Cadar/Gregory Carraz (Fra) 7-6 (7/2), 6-4; Luke Bourgeois/Nathan Healey (Aus) bt Trent Aaron (USA)/Todor Enev (Bul) 6-4, 6-2; Yves Allegro (Sui)/ Jean-Francois Bachelot (Fra) bt Bjorn Rehnquist/Johan
Settergren (Swe) 6-3, 6-4; Orest Tereshchuk (Ukr)/Yuri Schukin (Rus) bt Jamie Delgado (GBR)/ Louis Vosloo (RSA) 7-5, 6-1.
