Bopanna loses in round 1 of Bristol challenger

Young Indian Davis Cupper Rohan Bopanna had a bad outing in the Bristol challenger, losing in the first round itself to third seed Gregory Carraz of France 4-6, 2-6, on Wednesday.

Bopanna, ranked 494 on the ATP, was all at sea against the 147-ranked Frenchman and went down tamely.

Carraz had a good run at Wimbledon, reaching the second round of the main draw as a qualifier, where he lost to eventual champion Lleyton Hewitt.

Earlier, the Bangalore lad had beaten Mark Hilton of Great Britain 7-5, 4-6, 6-1 to advance to the main draw. He became only the second Indian in last five years to qualify for a foreign challenger event. The most recent was Syed Fazaluddin, who made it to the Tarzana (California) challenger in September 2001. Before Fazaluddin, Mahesh Bhupathi had made it to the Puerto Vallarta challenger in Mexico, in March 1997.

Bopanna beat Philip Horyna of Switzerland 4-6, 6-0, 7-5 in the first round and Nick Rainey of the United States 6-1, 4-6, 6-2 in the second.

Another Indian, Mustafa Ghouse went down to Graydon Oliver of United States 6-7(6), 4-6 in the first round of the qualifier.

Rohan and Mustafa are in the doubles qualifying draw and will face second seeds Igor Gaudi and Mose Navarra of Italy in the first round.

Bopanna was recently sent by the All India Tennis Association to Spain for a four-week training program at the Sanchez academy.