Balaji, Shweta win in Fenesta Open tennis championship

SRIRAM BALAJI played impressive tennis to churn out a 6-1,6-2 win against local talent Rubal Shandilya in the first round of the men’s singles in the Fenesta Open tennis championship at the Delhi Lawn Tennis Association (DLTA) complex in New Delhi on Monday.

Shweta Rana pulled off a 7-5,6-1 win against second seed Rishika Sunkara in the women’s singles category.

Balaji's serve was solid and he backed it with sustained aggression on either flank to crush his opponent in the dry capital heat.

Rubal played a lot of tennis here and has done well in smaller prize money tournaments.

There was no major upset in other men's matches with third seed Mohit Mayur and Sidharth Rawat warming up for tougher battles ahead.

In the boys’ under-18, top seed Aryan Goveas did not drop a single game as he whipped Jaydeep Chudasama 6-0, 6-0 while seventh seed Alex Solanki had an easy outing against Amarnath Arora winning it 6-1, 6-3.

Aryan later in the evening battled for three hours before losing in a three-setter to Siddharth Vishwakarma in men’s singles. Siddharth got the better of Aryan in 6-3, 3-6, 7-6 (2).