Sumit Nagal overcame home wildcard Nicolas Kicker 2-6, 6-2, 6-3 in the final qualifying round to enter the main draw of the $412,000 Argentina Open on the red clay of Buenos Aires.
The Indian faces World No 100 Joao Sousa of Portugal in the main draw first round of the clay court ATP Tour event which has home star Diego Schwartzman as the top seed.
The 23-year-old, world ranked 150, had earlier overcome Spain’s Carlos Gomez-Harrera 7-6, 2-6, 7-6 in the opener and Mario Vilella Martinez 6-4, 6-2 in the second round of qualifying.
In the $156,000 ATP Challenger in Nur-Sultan, Kazakhstan, Prajnesh Gunneswaran and Ramkumar Ramanathan scored hard-fought victories to reach the second round.
Prajnesh beat German lucky loser Julian Lenz 3-6, 6-2, 6-3 while Ramkumar got past Frenchman Hugo Grenier 6-4, 3-6, 6-3.
Prajnesh will next play Japan’s Tatsuma Ito and Ramkumar takes on Frederico Ferreira Silva of Portugal.
Saketh-Yuki duo off to strong start
Saketh Myneni and Yuki Bhambri got off to an explosive start as they thrashed second seeds Luca Castelnuovo of Switzerland and Eric Vanshelboim of Ukraine 6-1, 6-1 in the opening round of the $15,000 ITF men’s event in Lucknow on Tuesday.
In the $15,000 ITF women’s event in Delhi, top seed Riya Bhatia, Rutuja Bhosale and Zeel Desai launched their campaigns with smooth victories but Mihika Yadav lost 6-3, 6-7 (5), 5-7 to Denmark’s Elena Jamshidi.