NEW DELHI: Train hard and sensibly, the results will speak for your efforts. Pathanjali Ravishankar had a taste of this time-tested dictum as he outplayed the top-seeded Alexey Kedriouk of Kazakhstan 6-3, 6-3 in the first round of the ITF Satellite tennis circuit second leg at the DLTA Complex here on Tuesday.

Adequately equipped to handle the tough grind of the professional circuit following two weeks of training with coach Bob Brett at San Remo and a week with coaches M. Balu and Jonathan Stubbs in Bangalore, the stylish left-hander from Chennai played a delightful game to be home in just over an hour.

Dictating terms

Serving strongly and stroking with rare authority, the 24-year-old Ravishankar dictated terms against the 388th ranked Kazakh who was struggling with his game.

He broke Kedriouk in the third game of the first set and the sixth game of the second to make it a straightforward affair.

The victory provided considerable boost to the morale of Ravishankar who has not won a match since reaching the quarterfinals of a Futures event in Sri Lanka in November.

The 799th ranked Ravishankar, a trainee of coach Ilyas Hussain in Chennai, will next run into the finalist of the first week, Sarvar Ikramov of Uzbekistan.

Two wildcards advance

Meanwhile, two seeded players from the Oil sector, Vishaal Uppal of GAIL and Vinod Sridhar of ONGC, apart from two wildcards, Purav Raja and Tushar Liberhan were the other Indians reaching the second round.

Vinod was in good touch as he beat qualifier Hyun-Woo Nam of Korea, a semifinalist of the first week, in straight sets.

The Chennai lad who got off to a hesitant start, getting broken in his first service game, could have finished the match a lot earlier but for allowing his opponent to fight a bit after being up 5-2 in the second set.

Uppal saved two setpoints at 4-5 in the second set to overwhelm the former National and Afro-Asian Games champion Vijay Kannan in straight sets, for his sixth win in as many meetings between the two in the international circuit.

Purav advances

Purav Raja played close to his best in stopping qualifier Patrick Tierro of Philippines in his track in two keenly-contested sets while Tushar Liberhan did his confidence some good by beating qualifier Punna Vishal in three sets.

Among the other Indians in fray, Divij Sharan, Ashutosh Singh and Navdeep Singh put up a good fight while Vivek Shokeen failed to live up to expectations.

The results (first round) (Indians unless stated):

Pathanjali Ravishankar bt Alexey Kedriouk (Kaz) 6-3, 6-3; Sarvar Ikramov (Uzb) bt Marc-Andre Stratling (Ger) 6-2, 6-1; Purav Raja bt Patrick Tierro (Phi) 7-5, 7-6 (1); Manuel Jorquera (Ita) bt Vahid Mirzadeh (US) 6-3, 6-0; Vishaal Uppal bt Vijay Kannan 6-0, 7-5; Dusan Mihailovic (SCG) bt Vivek Shokeen 7-5, 6-4; Vinod Sridhar bt Hyun-Woo Nam (Kor) 6-3, 7-5; Federico Torresi (Ita) bt Dmitri Makeyev (Kaz) 6-0, 4-6, 6-0; Tushar Liberhan bt Punna Vishal 7-6(4), 0-6, 6-4; Philipp Mullner (Aut) bt Divij Sharan 6-3, 4-6, 6-4; Julien Maes (Fra) bt Navdeep Singh 7-5, 6-3; Yuri Bezeruk (Aus) bt Ashutosh Singh 6-1, 4-6, 6-4; Herbert Wiltschnig (Aut) bt Adam Fass (US) 6-0, 6-2.

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