India’s Ramkumar Ramanathan advanced to the men’s singles second round of the French Open qualifiers but Prajnesh Gunneswaran was knocked out following his first-round defeat in Paris on Tuesday.
Later in the night, India men’s singles No 1 Sumit Nagal also made it through to the second round of qualifying with an impressive 6-3, 6-3 win against Italian Roberto Marcora. The world No 143-ranked Indian needed just over 90 minutes to seal his straight sets win against his opponent ranked 192.
Ramkumar, ranked 215 currently, erased a one-set deficit to beat American Michael Mmoh 2-6 7-6(4) 6-3 in his opening round that lasted one hour and 54 minutes. The world No 169 raced away with the first set by breaking the Indian’s serve twice. The second set was a hard-fought battle with neither player even facing a single break point, but the Indian raced ahead in tie-break and closed it out.
Riding on that momentum, Ramkumar won the first two games of the third and deciding…
