SD Prajwal Dev may have been smarting after going down in the doubles event on Tuesday, but the seasoned player from Mysuru looked a different player in his opening singles match of the men’s ITF Kalaburagi Open at the Chandrashekhar Patil Stadium courts here on Wednesday.

The 28-year-old Indian came up with a fine all-court game to outplay Japan’s Kazuki Nishiwaki 6-2, 6-3 and set up a second-round showdown with second-seeded Bogdan Bobrov of Russia.

After the initial skirmishes, Prajwal settled down into a rhythm and ran the error-prone Japanese player ragged. He came up with winners off both flanks from the baseline, served solidly, winning 76 percent points on his first serve.

After trading breaks early, Prajwal broke Nishiwaki in the sixth and eighth games to take the opening set. In the second set, the Japanese came back strongly by breaking the Indian in the third game. But after a momentary lapse in concentration, Prajwal broke right back in the fourth, and again in the sixth game to sail through to the second round.

KALYANPUR GOES DOWN FIGHTING

Earlier, in a match of small margins, Adil Kalyanpur ended up on the wrong side of the scoreline in his opening match against Rishab Agarwal, losing 3-6, 7-5, 3-6 in a marathon encounter lasting two hours and 39 minutes.

The tall Bengalurean had his chances, but failed to capitalize on them, especially the key points in the match. One of the few players who likes to approach the net at every possible opportunity, the ploy backfired on most occasions on the day as he got passed repeatedly.

Despite the setback, Kalyanpur hung in there and made Agarwal fight for every point. After dropping his serve in the sixth game, the 24-year-old had three breakpoint opportunities in the next game, but Agarwal saved them all and closed out the first set in the ninth game.

Kalyanpur, who made the semifinals of the Rwanda event two months ago, saved two match points in the 10^th game and then broke his rival again in the 12^th game to take the match into the decider, which was a replay of the first – on a knife-edge till the last point.

Barring third-seeded Egor Agafonov’s retirement due to an ankle injury in the second set against Sidharth Rawat, rest of the seeded players sailed through to the second round.

Results (Round 1, prefix denotes seeding, Indians unless mentioned):

Singles: SD Prajwal Dev bt Kazuki Nishiwaki (Jpn) 6-2, 6-3; Rishab Agarwal bt Adil Kalyanpur 6-3, 5-7, 6-3; 8-Maxim Zhukov (Rus) bt Rishi Reddy 6-2, 7-5; Anthony Susanto (Ina) bt Priyanshu Choudhary 6-1, 6-7 (8-10), 7-6 (8-6); Sidharth Rawat bt 3-Egor Agafonov (Rus) 6-2, 2-0 (retd.); M Rifqi Fitriadi (Ina) bt Yuvan Nandal 6-1, 6-4.

4-Karan Singh bt Aditya Balsekar 7-6 (7-3), 6-0; 1-Khumoyun Sultanov (Uzb) bt Vishnu Vardhan 7-6 (8-6), 6-1; 2-Bogdan Bobrov (Rus) bt Manas Dhamne 6-2, 6-0; 6-Nick Chappell (USA) bt Pranav Karthik 5-7, 6-3, 6-2; Nitin Kumar Sinha bt Raghav Jaisinghani 6-3, 6-4; Adhithya Ganesan (USA) bt Maan Kesharwani 6-0, 6-1.

CAPTION: PIX-1 & PIX-2: SD Prajwal Dev essays a two-handed backhand return during his first-round win over Japan’s Kazuki Nishiwaki in the ITF Kalaburagi Open on Wednesday.

PIX-3: Rishab Agarwal executes a forehand return to Adil Kalyanpur in the first round of the ITF Kalaburagi Open on Wednesday.