India’s highest-ranked Tennis singles player Prajnesh Gunneswaran on Tuesday bowed was knocked out of the Australian Open 2020 after losing 4-6, 3-6, 5-7 in his first-round match against Japan’s Tatsuma Ito.
Gunneswaran had entered the main draw of men’s singles as a lucky loser but he gave Tatsumo a hard fight before going down in the year’s first Grand Slam at Rod Laver Arena in Melbourne. The match, which lasted for two hours as rain played spoilsport in the middle-order, was earlier scheduled for Monday but was postponed due to the same reason.
Gunneswaran, who lost the first two sets without giving much of a fight to his opponent, came hard in the third set and broke Tatsuma to take a lad of 2-1. The Japanese was on equal footing again but Gunneswaran was up to it as he brought the set level at 5-5.
However, Tatsuma showed why he was the better player on the day as he won two back to back games to proceed to the next round where he will face world number 2 Novak Djokovic.
The 30-year-old world number 122 was making his appearance in the main round of a Grand Slam on five straight occasions. He earlier played in the Wimbledon, French Open and the US Open due to his better rankings.
With Gunneswaran getting knocked out, India’s campaign in this year’s singles event has ended. In men’s doubles, India’s Divij Sharan will tie-up with his New Zealand partner, while Rohan Bopanna will play with Yatsuka Uchiyama.
In the women’s doubles Sania Mirza will partner Ukraine’s Nadiia Kichenok. They will face the Chinese duo of Xinyun Han and Lin Zhu in the opening round. Last week Mirza and Kichenok won the double’s titles at the Hobart International.