It was a bad day for the fancied players as all the four singles second round matches saw the exit of favourites.
First it was young Chun-hsin Tseng of Taipei who felled fourth seed Hugo Grenier of France in straight sets 6-1, 6-4 on centre court and minutes later qualifier Borna Gojo of Croatia sent third seed Australian Aleksandar Vukic home with a 7-5, 6-3 victory to advance to the quarterfinals of the Bengaluru Open ATP Challenger at the KSLTA Courts here on Wednesday.
Belgian Kimmer Coppejans after a long fought battle in the first set which he won 14-12 in a tie-breaker won the second set 6-3 to oust fifth seed Altug Celikbilek of Turkey to make it to the last eight stage along with another qualifier Gabriel Decamps of Brazil who labored hard to beat Italian Gian Marco Moroni 6-2, 5-7, 7-6 (3) in an epic 3 hour-5 min battle.
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Borna Gojo, who single handedly had put Croatia's road to final in the Davis Cup and is yet to break into the top 200, lost his serve in the third game and was down 1-3 by the next. However, he made a brilliant recovery winning the next three games including a break and grabbed the first set by achieving another break in the 12th game.
The second set went with the serves until the 23-year-old Borna broke his rival's serve to lead 4-2 and wrapped up the match at 6-3. "I didn't have much practice during the pandemic but of late my game is falling out of shape, but now I am playing well," said a visibly tired Borna who has played four matches in a row.
Chun-hsin, who had finished as the World No.1 junior in 2018 after winning the French Open and Wimbledon Junior titles, took some time to warm up taking more than 7 minutes to wrap up the first game after being 40-0 up. Breaks in the fourth and seventh game helped the 20-year-old wrap up the first set 6-1.
The second set saw the Frenchman stage a comeback until the fifth game where he lost his serve, thanks to two double faults which proved crucial and paved the way for Chun-hsin's win. For the record, the Taipei youngster signed off with an ace in the 10th game.
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Meanwhile, Prajnesh Gunneswaran of India will clash with top seed Jiri Vesely of Czech Republic on Thursday for a place in the singles quarterfinal. As many as four Indian pairs will figure in the quarterfinals also to be played on tomorrow.
