Gajjar, Bhel lose in Australian Hardcourt event

Indian juniors had a poor day at the qualifying rounds for the Grade-1 Australian Hardcourts ITF Juniors Championships at Glen Waverly, Melbourne, Australia on Saturday.

In the boys' qualifying, second seeded Rohan Gajjar went down in the second round to ninth seeded Daniel Sebescen of Yougoslavia 5-7, 4-6 after defeating Todd Ley of Australia 6-4, 6-4 in the first round.

The other Indians in the fray, 13th seed Rishi Behl and unseeded Sujay Reddy both went down in the first round.

Behl lost a hard-fought match to Jason Mok of Australia 7-5, 4-6, 1-6, while Reddy went down to 15th seeded Leon Soonalole 2-6, 0-6.

In the girls' qualifying, eighth seeded Sasha Abraham also lost her first round match to Natalie Tanevska of Australia 1-6, 5-7.

Meanwhile, Sania Mirza, Megha Vakharia and Amanjot Singh are in the main draw of the event which starts on Sunday, January 13.

Amanjot Singh, who is currently ranked 43rd on the ITF listing, is unseeded at the event and will face qualifier Gunter Austerhuber of Austria in the first round.

Mirza is seeded eighth and will face Daniella Dominikovic of Australia while unseeded Megha Vakharia will face Olga Puchkov of Bulgaria in the first round.

Last week, Sania had lost in the singles quarter-finals of the Victorian Grade II championship at Traralgon, Australia and won the doubles alongwith Linda Smolenakov of Slovakia.

It was the biggest and first Grade II title for the Indian lass.

This tournament is the big preparation event before the Australian Open juniors the week after next.