Second seed Ashutosh Singh and fifth ranked Vivek Shokeen scripted identical facile victories to romp into the second round of the Indian Oil [Get Quote] Servo National Grasscourt Championships in Kolkata on Tuesday.
National Hardcourt champion Ashutosh took only 50 minutes to snuff out a feeble challenge from Assamese qualifier Kaushik Das 6-1 6-1 in a completely one-sided opening round battle on a day when results tallied with rankings at the Calcutta South Club.
Fellow Delhiite Shokeen carved out a 7-5 6-2 win over Tamil Nadu's Vijay Sunder Prasanth to set up a clash for a quarterfinal berth with former Davis Cupper Harsh Mankad.
Maharashtra's Mankad, back after a year-long injury lay off and playing with a wild card, tamed Divyanshu Singh of Delhi 6-4 6-2 in a match that had remained incomplete on Monday.
Third seed Karnataka's Aditya Madkekar breezed past lucky loser Dhruv Kumar of West Bengal 6-2 6-3 and would now take on veteran Syed Fazaluddin, who got past Ajai Selvaraj of Tamil Nadu 7-6 (7-3) 6-1, in the second round.
On the distaff side, sixth seed Bengal's Ragini Vimal spanked wild card entrant and statemate Richa Valecha 6-4 6-0 to settle for a second round battle with qualifer Anushree Tamanna of Karnataka, who had humbled Bengal's Shivika Burman 6-3 3-6 6-3 in her maiden engagement on Monday.
Qualifier Gunuganti Janaki of Andhra Pradesh came back strongly after dropping the opening set to shut out Delhi's Vishaka Sheoran 2-6 7-6 (9-7) 6-2.
Also on the winners' list was eighth seed and former national champion Shalini Sahoo of Delhi, who ousted Karnataka veteran Archana Venkatraman in straight sets 6-2 6-4.
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