Singles top seed Jay Clarke exits early from Chennai Open

Chennai, Feb 11 (PTI) Top seed Jay Clarke of Britain suffered a first-round exit in singles, losing to Ioannis Xilas of Greece, at the Chennai Open ATP Challenger Men's International Tennis Championship here on Wednesday.

However, the top two seeded pairs in doubles -- Niki Kaliyanda Poonacha/Pruchya Isaro and Saketh Myneni/Siddhant Banthia -- advanced to the quarter-finals.

Clarke, ranked No. 183 in the ATP rankings, broke Xilas early in the first set to take a 3-0 lead. But the 24-year-old Xilas struck back strongly, breaking serve and controlling the match to register a 6-4, 6-4 win.

In another first-round singles match, Indian qualifier Aryan Lakshmanan competed strongly in the opening set before going down to Poland's Maks Kasnikowski 5-7, 2-6.

In second-round singles action, India's Mukund Sasikumar won the first set before losing to Kazakhstan's Denis Yevseyev 6-3, 2-6, 3-6. Yevseyev was joined in the quarter-finals by second seed Federico Agustin Gomez of Argentina, who defeated Italy's Lorenzo Carboni 6-3, 6-4.

In doubles, top seeds Poonacha/Isaro, who made their Grand Slam debut at last month's Australian Open after winning the Asia-Pacific Wildcard Playoff, defeated Indian pair Sai Karteek Reddy Ganta/Digvijaypratap Singh 6-4, 6-2 to reach the last eight stage.

"We executed our game with high energy and controlled the points. Overall, we played solid," Poonacha said after the win.

"Playing in Chennai always feels like home — perfect weather, great infrastructure and very humble people. Hopefully we will go deeper in the tournament," he added.

Second seeds Myneni/Banthia battled back from a set down to beat Yevseyev/Eric Vanshelboim 2-6, 6-1, 10-2 in the match tie-break to also reach the quarter-finals.

Myneni is aiming to reach the final of the Chennai Open Challenger for the third consecutive year after winning the title in 2024 and finishing runner-up in 2025 (both times partnering Ramkumar Ramanathan).

Two other Indian pairs also advanced to the last eight stage. Wildcards Lohithaksha Bathrinath/Abhinav Sanjeev Shanmugam defeated fellow Indians Manas Dhamne/Atharva Sharma 6-3, 2-6, 10-8, while Ishaque Eqbal/Manish Sureshkumar overcame the Indo-British duo of Raghav Jaisinghani/Carl Holder 3-6, 6-1, 10-3. PTI PDS PDS AH AH