Kaichi Uchida was nowhere close to his best. The 29-year-old Japanese, who had reached the semifinals of two Challengers last year and was ranked in the world’s top 150 last year, hardly put a foot right as Italy’s Stefano Napolitano, the fifth seed, scripted a convincing 6-1, 6-2 win in the first round of the Chennai Open ATP Challenger tennis championship here on Monday.
Later, on the outside courts, Giovanni Fonio of Italy overcame a tough challenge to defeat Maxime Janvier of France 6-4, 3-6, 7-5.
Uchida, ranked 137 places below the Italian at 351, was way below par as the latter dominated the match completely. Napolitano’s first serves (82%) were superior to Uchida’s 57. There weren’t many long rallies as the Japanese continued to make numerous unforced errors making the Italian’s job much easier.
Napolitano broke Uchida’s serve in all the games barring the first. In the second set, Uchida produced a couple of good backhand winners, but those were few and far between. In fact, The Japanese received a code violation in the second game of the second set. At 30-40 on his serve, he threw the ball out of the court after missing a forehand shot. In contrast, the match between Fonio and Janvier was intense with long rallies. The crucial break for the Italian came in the 12th game of the third set. Janvier began his serve with a double fault and ended with another to gift the match to Fonio. Napolitano said he expected a tough match.
“Results might say that it is an easy match, but I don’t say that. I know the value of my opponent and his qualities. I know the way he’s been winning matches last year. Especially at this stage last year. Then he dropped a little bit,” Napolitano said. S. D. Prajwal Dev of India qualified for the main draw with a 6-3, 6-3 win over Vadym Usru of Ukraine, thereby making him the lone Indian among 11 from the qualifiers.
The results (first round): Stefano Napolitano (Ita) bt Kaichi Uchida (Jpn) 6-1, 6-2; Giovanni Fonio (Ita) bt Maxime Janvier (Fra) 6-4, 3-6, 7-5; Dominik Palan (Cze) bt Arthur Weber (Fra) 6-1, 6-4; Dan Added (Fra) bt Akira Santillan (Aus) 2-6, 6-4, 4-1 (retd.).
