Somdev Devvarman crashes out of Chennai Open in first round

India's top singles player Somdev Devvarman choked after initially showing promise as he lost to sixth seed Yen Hsun Lu of Chinese Taipei in straight sets to crash out of the ATP Chennai Open tennis tournament in the first round in Chennai on Tuesday. An error-prone Somdev, a wild card entrant, lost 3-6, 4-6 in 80 minutes to Lu, ranked 38th in the world.

In his first round match before a supportive crowd at the centre court, Somdev failed to raise his game in his 11th appearance in the ATP event. The 29-year-old top Indian on the ATP World Tour is making his sixth main draw appearance (5-5 record). In his debut in 2009, he reached the final. Since then, he has not won back-to-back matches, falling in the second round in 2010 and 2013 and in the first round in 2011 and last year.

It was though a well earned win for Lu as Somdev wilted under pressure and surrendered the initiative after showing glimpses of counter attacking tennis. The Indian star made mistakes and failed to finish the rallies after holding advantage. In the first set, Somdev was struck to baseline play most of the time by Lu, the top Chinese Taipei player and the Indian came up short in dealing with the situation.

In the second set, Somdev did enjoy some superiority and played some brilliant volleys and cross-court returns but he lacked consistency. Lu grabbed the initiative to break Somdev and led 3-1.

The Indian managed to hold his serve and then broke back Lu to neutralize the score to 3-3. However, Lu waited for his chances and managed to take 5-4 lead before holding his serve to win the set and the match. Earlier, two other Indians also bowed of the tournament with Ramkumar Ramanathan and Vijay Sundar Prashanth losing their first round matches.