Sharan upsets top seed Sugiyama

Divij Sharan provided a thrilling start to the singles action with a 6-3, 6-3 upset of top seed Norikazu Sugiyama of Japan in the first leg of the ITF Satellite men's tennis tournament at the National Tennis Academy in Gurgaon on Tuesday.

In another first round match, Sunil Kumar Sipaeya, high on confidence after a doubles title win in Thailand last week, ousted Mustafa Ghouse 3-6, 7-5, 6-0.

Ajay Ramaswami had it easy against Germany's Peter Mayer-Tischer, winning 6-2, 6-1 while former Davis Cupper Vishal Uppal accounted for Alexandra Simon of Romania 6-4, 6-4.

Punna Vishal suffered an agonising 6-7 (6/8), 6-3, 7-6 (7/5) loss to Anreas Fashing of Austria while lone Indian qualifier Kamala Kannan went down to another Austrian, Tobia Koeck, losing 7-6 (7/4), 6-0.

Other results (Indian unless specified):

Singles (1st round): Konstantin Gruber (Aut) bt Pathanjali Ravishankar 6-4, 6-4; Alexey Kedriouk (Kaz) bt Patrick John Tierro (Phi) 6-4, 6-2; Davor Kuseta (Cro) bt Prahlad Srinath 5-4 (retd.); Joseph Huber (Aut) bt Arindam Datta 6-0, 6-2; Sascha Kloer (Ger) bt Marcel Miron (Rom) 6-2, 6-2; Simon Greul (Ger) bt Mohammed Shaaban (Egy) 6-3, 6-1; Sergei Krotiouk (Rus) bt Sherif Sabry (Egy) 6-2, 6-1; Vivek Shokeen bt Varun Walia 6-2, 6-0.