Rohan Bopanna, Sunil Sipaeya in second round

New Delhi, Dec 4 (UNI) Sixth seed Rohan Bopanna and Wild card Sunil Kumar Sipaeya chalked out contrasting victories to move into the second round while national champion Ashutosh Singh along with three other Indians fell by the way side in the SAIL Opeb 50,000 dollars ATP Challenger tennis tournament here today.

Bopanna overpowered fellow Indian and qualifier Tushar Liberhan in straight sets 6-3, 6-4 while Sunil made heavy weather of his victory over Mohd Ghareeb of Kuwait 7-6(8), 6-3.

Bopanna will face Sunil in the next round.

Otherwise, it was yet another poor day for the Indians with national champion Ashutosh Singh crashing out without putting up a semblance of fight.

Wild card entry Ashutosh lost to France's Sebastian De Chaunac 2-6,1-6.

Another wild card entry Vivek Shokeen however put up a great fight against top seed Kristian Pless (Denmark) before going down.

Shooken took the top seed to three sets and fought well but committed several unforced errors in the decider while showing signs of tiredness. The Indian lost 1-6, 6-3, 3-6.

Qualifier Virali Murugesan Ranjeet lost to Russia's D Vlasov 4-6, 1-6.

Winner of the lst Week's Challenger, second seed Aisam-ul-Haq Qureshi (Pakistan) recorded an easy win over Martin Slanar of Austria 6-3, 6-4 and then came to know that he has got a walk over in the second round as his rival Dieter Kindlmann of Germany has withdrawn due to injuries.

Kindlmann beat Nathan Thompson of the United States 6-4, 6-2 in the first round this afternoon. Qureshi now awaits the winner of Bopanna-Sunil match in the third round.

Eighth seed Ivan Sergeyev of Ukrain beat Turkey's Marsel Ilhan 6-3, 7-5.

In the doubles: Karan Rastogi(Ind) and Nathan Thomson (USA) beat H.Kondo/N Sugiyama (Jpn) 6-2, 6-3; V Prasanth/V M Ranjeet bt Adnan Crucat(Rou)/A Menendez (Esp) 6-4,7-5; P Chekhov/M Elgin (Rus) w/o B Balleret(Mon)/S De Chaunac (Fra); P Raja/Sunil Kr Sipaeya beat Stephen Amritraj(Ind)/Frank Moser (Ger) 7-6(3), 6-4.

UNI