Indian exodus in first round

It was a bad day for Indian players in the US $15,000 men's ITF Futures tennis tournament, in Mumbai on Monday, as all who were on view crashed out in the first round itself.

Unseeded Vinod Sridhar though brought some cheer to the Indian camp before going down fighting to Baptiste Dupuy of France 6-4, 2-6, 6-4 in one hour 50 minutes.

However, Davis Cuppers Nitin Kirtane and Vishal Uppal, youngsters Manoj Mahadevan and Rishi Sridhar went down without putting up much of a fight.

The top three seeds -- Yeu-Tzuoo Wang of Chinese Taipei, Andres Dellatorrs of Argentina of the Netherlands -- who pulled out of the tournament, citing personal reasons.

Wild card Uppal lost to qualifier Mlynarik Zbnek of Austria 2-6, 1-6 in half an hour while Mahadevan was sent packing by Englishman David Sherwood 4-6, 1-6 in 50 minutes.

Rishi Sridhar met his match at the hands of another Japanese qualifier Matsui Toshihide, losing 5-7, 4-6 while left hander Kirtane was beaten by lucky loser Giuseppe Menga of Italy after Dellatorre failed to turn up for his match. The other lucky loser Naoki Arimoto of Japan, who came in place of Wassen, lost the first round battle to qualifier Daniel Lesske of Germany 1-6, 6-7 (1-7).

Results (men's singles) first round: Jasper Smit (Ned) bt Tomas Cakl (Cze) 6-2, 7-5; Hiroki Kondo (Jpn) bt Alessandro Da Col (Ita) 7-6 (7-4), 6-4; Toshihide Matsui (Jpn) bt Rishi Sridhar (Ind) 7-5 6-4; David Sherwood (GBR) bt Manoj Mahadevan (Ind) 6-4, 6-1; Baptiste Dupuy (Fra) bt Vinod Sridhar (Ind) 6-4, 2-6, 6-4; Zbnek Mlynarik (Aut) bt Vishal Uppal (Ind) 6-2, 6-1; Daniel Lesske (Ger) bt Naoki Arimoto (Jpn) 6-1, 7-6 (7-1); Giuseppe Menga (Ita) bt Nitin Kirtane (Ind) 6-4, 6-3.