THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The ITF Men’s Tournament was formally inaugurated at the Trivandrum Tennis Club on Monday with a match between Southern Air Force Command Adventure and Sports Control Board chairman Air Vice-Marshall Chandrashekharan and France’s 1004 ranked player Plavovik Luka.
Air Vice-Marshall Duckworth was the chief guest of the event. Kerala Tennis Association president Jacob C Kalliveyil, KTA secretary Thomas Paul, TTC president Satish Kumar, secretary H Krishnamoorthy, and Trivandrum District Tennis Association secretary K Thomas Jacob also attended.
In the opening doubles match, Brazil’s Caio Silva - Thales Turini defeated India’s Kunal Anand - Anvit Bendre. In other matches, Serbia’s Goran Markovic – Argentina’s Pena Lopez and India’s A Shanmukham - Nitin Kumar Sinha, France’s Pavlovic Luka and India’s Dalwinder Singh, India’s Dhruv Sunish - Kunal Vazirani and India’s Arjun Kadhe – N Prashanth were declared winners.
In the 16 singles matches on Monday, France’s Plavovic Luka, Ukraine’s Danil Zarichanskyy, India’s Karan Srivastava, Germany’s Sami Reinwein, India’s Vashistha Chauku, India’s Jayesh Pungliya, A Chandrashekhar, India’s Aryan Goveas, Manish Sureshkumar, M Jayaprakash, Sanjay G S, Prashanth N, Dalwinder Singh, Brazil’s Ciao Silva, Thales Turini and Vietnam’s Hoang Nam Ly qualified for the second round. The second round will begin on Tuesday.