Prajnesh Gunneswaran advanced to the second round of qualifiers while Sumit Nagal was knocked out in Round 1 as the French Open qualifying stage got underway on Monday. Gunneswaran had a favourable draw in the first round of qualifying while Nagal was up against former world No.64 Dustin Brown. Both of them, however, had players below their current ranking.
Prajnesh had a field day against Turkey?s Cem Ilkel as he registered a dominating 6-3, 6-1 win in just an hour and five minutes. Prajnesh produced a restrained performance while Ilkel was erratic and his ATP rank of 206 showed. Ilkel had five aces to show against four double faults as well while Prajnesh record two each in both departments.
Prajnesh?s first serve percentage was 58 per cent compared 43 from Ilkel and the over 20 per cent difference in the wins on first serve was a huge marker for Prajnesh. Prajnesh also came to the net a lot and won 75 per cent of his net points while Ilkel played from the baseline throughout. Prajnesh converted five of his nine break points while Ilkel converted just one from four. Prajnesh also had 18 winners against his 17 unforced errors while Ilkel made 18 unforced errors against 12 winners.
Nagal, on the other hand, fell 6-7(4), 5-7 to Brown in an hour and 47 minutes. Despite being cut to cut with Brown in almost all departments, it was Nagal?s inability to convert the break points that cost him eventually. Nagal had 11 break points but could convert only four while Brown converted 50 per cent of his break points.
Brown made far too many unforced errors in 45 but also had 35 winners to show. Nagal had 15 winners against 22 unforced errors. Nagal and Brown were pretty much on the same level except that the Indian fell behind in crucial moments to lost the match.
Ramkumar Ramanathan too lost in the first round qualifier against local Tristan Lamasine 5-7, 2-6.
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