Orissa Open kick-starts tennis time

The second Orissa Open Tournament at Bhubaneswar Club in Bhubaneswar has renewed the tennis season in the state. Organised by Khurda District Tennis Association (KDTA), the Orissa Open commenced today. It will be followed by many more domestic tournaments, including the Veteran Doubles Carnival at Keonjhar (Nov 22-23) and the Nalco Open (December 2nd week) here at Kalinga Stadium. Orissa Open provided players from across the State, including that of Baripada, Paralakhemundi and Nuapara, an opportunity to compete among themselves and enjoy the occasion. The schedule of the opening day witnessed around 60 matches open singles, open doubles, veteran doubles and mixed doubles. At the end of the day, two major upsets raised eye-brows as most of the seeded players reached quarterfinals in open singels. Siddharth Das made good use of his top-spin ground strokes to eliminate seeded opponent Anand Senapati in a third round open singles match to book a berth in the quarterfinals. Other seeded players, including leader Ajay Nishank and strong contenders Lalit Das, Partha Sarathi Hansda, Chinmay Pradhan, did not experience any major problem to join Siddharth in the last eight round. The second upset of the day occurred when schoolboys Shakti Ray and Adwitya Patnaik defeated the highly experienced duo of Dushmant Tung and Arun Birla in an exciting second round open doubles clash. The introduction of mixed-doubles event allowed girls and ladies to take part in Orissa Open and enjoy the gala event as well.