India's Vijay Kannan rallied from a set down to oust sixth seed Bjorn Rehnquist of Sweden 2-6, 6-3, 6-4 and move into the second round in the Indian Oil Servo ATP Challenger tennis championship in Bangalore on Tuesday.
Kannan, who filled the slot after Rehnquist's opponent Takahiro Terachi of Japan as well as lucky loser Jamie Delgado of Britain failed to turn up, came back strongly after a tentative start to carve out a memorable victory.
"I was really lucky (to get into the main draw)," the 23-year-old Kannan, ranked 508 in the world, said.
"Initially, I did not get my rhythm but came back well in the second and the final set, capitalising on his weak serve," he added.
Rehnquist is ranked some 325 places above Kannan.
However, it was a mixed day for India. While wild card Rohan Bopanna, India's top singles player, breezed past unseeded Arvind Parmar of Britain 6-4, 6-2, disappointment was in store for another Indian wild card, Prakash Amritraj, who went down to Bulgaria's unseeded Todor Enev 1-6, 3-6.
Indian Davis Cupper Bopanna used his big serve to good effect to waltz past Parmar. The 23-year-old, runner-up in the Asian tennis championship and ranked just outside the world's top 300, needed just 55 minutes to put it across Parmar.
Seventh seed Tuomas Ketola of Finland also scored a first round victory, crushing unseeded Japanese Gouichi Motomura 6-3, 6-1.
Other first round winners today included Dmitry Vlasov, who defeated countryman Yuri Schukin 6-0, 6-7 (3-7), 6-2, and Peter Wessels of the Netherlands, who beat Italy's Federico Luzzi 6-4, 6-2.
In a match that lasted two hours and 25 minutes, Germany's Maximilian Abel prevailed over Israel's Jonathan Erlich 6-7 (5-7), 6-4, 7-6 (9-7) to reach the last 16.
