turned out to be a poor day for five Indian wild cardholders as all of them lost in the Qualifiers of the DafaNews Bangalore open here on Sunday. Karan Singh fought his heart out against before losing 6-7(3), 7-5, 6-7(9) in the opening round that lasted two hours and 46 minutes.
Sasikumar Mukund also fell 4-6, 3-6 to fourth seed Italian S Vincent Ruggeri.
Former national champion Siddarth Vishwakarma, who entered the field as an alternate, also battled hard against seventh seed Ukrainian Eric Vanshelboim but eventually lost 4-6, 4-6.
Two more Indian wild cards — Niki Poonacha and Adil Kalyanpur — also could not make the most of the opportunity, making an early exit.
Poonacha, who made a winning Davis Cup debut last week in Islamabad, also exited the event with a 3-6, 4-6 defeat against top seed Austrian Bernard Tomic, who was once a Top-20 player on the Tour.
Adil lost 4-6, 3-6 to eighth seed Korean Yun Seong Chung. Moving to the next round were French Enzo Wallart and South African Kris Van Wyk.
Wallart set aside the challenge of Japanese sixth seed Kaichi Uchida while Van Wyk pushed out Poland’s Olaf Pieczkowski 6-3 6-3.