Somdev stuns seventh seed at Bucharest Challenger

BUCHAREST (Romania): Somdev Devvarman shrugged off the Davis Cup disappointment and ousted seventh seed Dominik Meffert in the first round of the euro 30,000 Bucharest Challenger here.
    
Somdev defeated his German opponent, ranked 179 in the ATP charts, 6-4 6-2  to advance to the second round, where he will meet another German in Gero Kretschmer in the clay court event.
    
Kretschme beat Spain's Carlos Poch-Gradin 6-4 7-5 in his opening round match.
    
Just last week, Somdev had lost both of his singles matches in the World Group play-off tie against Romania here.
    
In the doubles competition, Prakash Amritraj and his British partner Richard Bloomfield advanced to the quarterfinals after getting a walkover from Italian pair of Matteo Marrai and Simone Vagnozzi.
    
They next face local favourite Adrian Cruciat and Florin Mergea.