India's top players move to pre-quarters of Pune Challenger

Led by Prajnesh Gunneswaran, India's top singles players progressed to the pre-quarterfinals with contrasting victories, but Saketh Myneni was knocked out of the KPIT-MSTLA Challenger after being in a position of strength here on Wednesday. India number one and top seed Prajnesh needed just 49 minutes to demolish Chandril Sood 6-1 6-3 while third seed Sumit Nagal quelled a late challenge from Aryan Goveas to emerge a 6-3 7-6(5) winner in one hour and 16 minutes.

Sixth seed Ramkumar Ramnathan hammered eight aces on his way to a 6-3 6-4 win over Greek player Markos Kalovelonis. Eighth seed Sasikumar Mukund didn't have to break much sweat in getting past Japanese doubles specialist Toshide Matsui 6-2 6-3 in his second round match at the Balewadi Sports Complex.

With 20-year-old Manish Sureshkumar already into the last 16, there are now five Indians in contention for quarterfinal places on Thursday. Myneni was leading 6-3 4-2 in his second round clash against Turkish Ergi Kirkin but the 10th seeded Indian could not keep the momentum going to eventually lose 6-3 5-7 4-6.

Fifteenth seed Brydan Klein of Britian also came back from being down 2-4 in the third set to end the challenge of Siddarth Rawat, winning 6-1 3-6 6-4 in little over two hours. Wild card Dhruv Sunish gave a good account of himself by taking 13th seed Ivan Nedelko to the ropes but the experienced 33-year-old Russian, ranked 617 places above the Indian, prevailed 6-3 5-7 6-2.

Seventh seeded Roberto Ortega-Olmedo of Spain was too good for young Indian Anniruddha Chandrasekar, who lost 3-6 2-6. Turkey's 12th seed Cem Ilkel ended the lucky run of Kaza Vinayak Sharma with a 6-2 6-1 scoreline.

Dutchman Tim Van Rijthoven ended the challenge of Indian qualifier Dalwinder Singh 6-3 6-1 in less than an hour.