Radhakrishnan loses to Voest in first round

Wild card Anand Radhakrishnan failed to make much of an impression as he went down to fifth seed South African Rik De Voest 1-6, 2-6 in the first round of the ITF Futures Tennis Tournament at the South Club in Calcutta on Monday.

Anand could not match his stronger opponent, who just took 17 minutes to wrap the first set as the Indian managed to hold serve only once in the fourth game.

There was no change of fortunes for Anand in the second set. He managed to send down two aces in the third game but lost without really putting up much of an effort.

Rik de Voest dominated the game with excellent all round play and power packed shots. His forays into the net left Anand stranded in the back court.

Eighth seed Donavan September of South Africa struggled a little bit before prevailing over Dmitri Mazur of Uzbekistan 6-1, 2-6, 6-3 in a tussle which lasted about 103 minutes.

In the doubles event, the Indian pair of Rohan Bopanna and Vijay Kannan defeated compatriot duo of Mustafa Ghouse and Vishal Uppal 6-7 (3), 6-4, 6-4 in a keenly contested encounter.

The Indonesian team of Sulistyo Wibowo and Bonit Wiryawan had no difficulty in brushing aside the Indian duo of Manoj Mahadevan and Rishi Sridhar 6-3, 6-2.

The Uzbek pair of Anton Kokurin and Abdul Hamid Makhamov demolished the Indian duo of Saurav Panja and Prahlad Srinath 2-6, 7-6(3), 7-5(5) in the first round.