ITF men's Tennis: Poonacha only Indian to enter quarters

NEW DELHI: Foreign players' dominance was out in full display during the singles Round of 16 of the ITF Men's $15,000 New Delhi on Thursday, with seven out of eight quarter-finals spots booked by them.

Two Americans -- Oliver Crawford, fourth seed and winner of last week's ITF M15 Pune, and qualifier Alexander Kotzen -- along with Irish second seed Simon Carr, British third seed Aidan McHugh, Dalibor Svrcina of Czech Republic, Italy's Lorenzo Bocchi, and Hungarian Zsombor Velcz are the seven foreigners who have reached the quarter-finals.

Niki K. Poonacha, the 2019 national champion of India, outplayed the Swede Filip Bergevi 6-4, 6-4, who had knocked out the number one seed Sidharth Rawat on Wednesday, and made it to the quarter-finals as the only Indian.

India's Nitin Kumar Sinha, who made it to the main draw as lucky loser, put up a spirited fight against British third seed Aidan McHugh before bowing out 7-5, 6-7, 6-7 in a gruelling four-hour-and-nine-minute long match.

Sinha fired seven aces in total during the hard-fought three-setter and had just three double faults whilst McHugh could only manage three aces and double-faulted six times, but failed to convert both the tie-breaks. IANS

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