- Abhijit Deshmukh
Pune: In the most anticipated game of Day 1 here at Tata Open, all eyes were set on local hero Arjun Kadhe. Kadhe recieved wild card entry in doubles and partnered Frenchmen Benoit Paire. They had an uphill task against 2nd seed from Netherlands Robin Hasse and Matwe MiddelKoop. Against the odds, dutchmans were broken twice in first set. Kadhe & Paire won 79% points on first serve and claimed the set 6-1.The second set was close encounter, it was hard to break serve. However, Hasse and MiddelKoop managed to break serve of Paire and won 2nd set 7-5.
In the match tie-breaker, Hasse & MiddelKoop took 3-0 lead but a return ace from Kadhe boosted the atmosphere of the stadium. It was the hope of comeback and Kadhe-Paire manged to bring score 6-5. Paire made couple of unforced errors and removed frustration on tennis racquet. He changed the racquet, but couldn't change the course of the match, as Dutch pair won match tie-breaker 10-7. Kadhe & Paire were highly supported by thousands of fans gathered at Centre court of Balewadi Stadium.
In other doubles match, Indian pair and wild card entrant Vishnu Vardhan & N Balaji lost in the first round to Adil Shamsuddin(Canada) and Neal Skupski(England). Match lasted for 1hr & 39 mins and result was decided in match tie-breaker. 6-3, 6-7, 6-10 final score in favor of Shamsuddin and Skupski.
