-Abhijit Deshmukh
Dubai:- India's Prajnesh Gunneswaran bowed out of the first round of Dubai Duty-free tennis championship after a straight-setsloss to Dennis Novak of Austria. Dennis overpowered Prajnesh 6-4, 6-3 in just 1 hour and 17 mins to enter the second round.
This was the first ATP tour meeting between the two players with Dennis reaching the main draw via qualifiers.Prajnesh ranked no. 134 in the world received wild card at the event, started off well breaking dennis serve in the third game.
But the austrian broke prajnesh's serve immediately in next game to level game 2-2.Prajnesh had lethal serve, fired some aces with 204 km/h but the austrian had better returns.The wind troubled both the players but it was the Dennis who held his nerve.
In the 10th game, prajnesh serve was broken as Dennis took the first set 6-4 in 41 mins.
In second set, Dennis took most of the games to long rallies where the dapper left hander committed errors.Prajnesh was broken thrice in the set as the austrian wrapped up second set 6-3 in just 36 mins.
With prajnesh's loss, India's hope in singles has ended at ATP 500 Dubai Duty free tennis championship.
