Niki Poonacha leads India's march in Bengaluru Open

National champion Niki Poonacha recorded his biggest career win by knocking out Lucas Rosol from the Bengaluru Open on Tuesday.

The 24-year-old wild card entrant won 6-4 2-6 6-3 in one hour and 45 minutes in the opening round of the USD 162480 hard court ATP Challenger tournament.

In the other upset of the day, last edition's runner-up Saketh Myneni sent sixth seed Evgeny Donskoy of Russia packing with a 6-3 6-3 win, while qualifier Abhinav Shanmugam prevailed over the fancied Daniel Masur of Germany 7-5 6-3.

After a gruelling opening round on Monday, Poonacha, although tired, pulled himself along and broke Rosol in the 10th game to take the first set.

The 34-year-old Rosol, who was once ranked 26th in the world and having the reputation of beating the likes of Rafael Nadal at the Wimbledon in 2012, achieved breaks in the fifth and seventh games and served out the set. An early break in the second game of the decider saw the match turn in Poonacha's favour.

Myneni, ranked 192, got broken in the third game and was down 1-3 in the next. However, he came back strongly to win the next five games on the trot with breaks in the 6th and 8th games to take the first set.

Myneni, who has been flirting with injuries for the last two years, broke the Russian in the third game to gain an advantage and broke again in the ninth to take the set and the match.

Sumit Nagal, seeded eighth in the tournament, defeated Tunisia's Malek Jaziri 6-0, 6-4 in Round 32 encounter, whereas, the fourth-seeded doubles pair of Ramkumar Ramanathan and Purav Raja defeated wild card entrants Indian compatriots S D Prajwal Dev and Adil Kalyanpur 6-2, 6-2.