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ndia’s Aditya Vishal Balsekar emerged as the lone Indian qualifier for the main draw of the Karnataka Open ATP Challenger after producing a fine straight-sets win over fifth seed Grigoriy Lomakin in the final round of qualifying at the SM Krishna Tennis Stadium here on Monday.

The ninth-seeded Indian (qualifying) played with confidence and composure to register a 6-3, 7-5 victory over the higher-ranked Kazakh, giving the home crowd a reason to cheer on an otherwise difficult day for the Indian contingent.

In the main draw, the biggest upset of the day, however, came courtesy Japan’s Yuta Kawahashi, ranked 637th in the world, who shocked eighth seed Alex Hernandez of Mexico, ranked 193 places above him, 6-3, 3-6, 6-4 in a gripping three-set battle.

Indian wildcard Maan Kesharwani fought hard before going down to Czech Republic’s Dominik Palan 7-6(10), 6-4 in a closely contested opening-round encounter. Sidharth Rawat too put up a spirited display but fell to seventh seed Maximus Jones 6-4, 7-3.

Another Indian wildcard, Dev Javia, stretched Serbia’s fifth seed Ognjen Milic in the second set before eventually losing 6-1, 7-6(5).

India’s challenge in the qualifiers also ended for Adil Kalyanpur and alternate Parth Aggarwal, who lost their respective final qualifying matches.

Results (Pre-fix denotes seedings, country in parenthesis)

Men’s singles Round of 32

 Dominik Palan (CZE) bt WC-Maan Kesharwani (IND) 7-6 (10), 6-4;

7-Maximus Jones (THA) bt Sidharth Rawat (IND) 6-4, 7-3;

5-Ognjen Milic (SRB) bt WC-Dev Javia (IND) 6-1, 7-6 (5);

Yuta Kawahashi (JPN) bt 8-Alex Hernandez (MEX) 6-3, 3-6, 6-4.

Final Qualifying Round

Alt-Christopher Papa (USA) bt Adil Kalyanpur (IND) 5-7, 6-3, 6-3;

6-Ronit Karki (USA) bt bt Alt-Parth Aggarwal (IND) 6-2, 6-1;

1-Alastair Gray (GBR) bt Volodymyr Iakubenko 7-6 (3), 7-6 (4);

7-Ryotaro Taguchi (JPN) bt 4-Naoya Honda (JPN) 3-6, 7-5, 6-3;

2-Taiyo Yamanaka (JPN) bt Tomohiro Masabayashi (JPN) 6-2, 6-1;

9-Aditya Vishal Balsekar (IND) bt 5-Grigoriy Lomakin (KAZ) 6-3, 7-5.