Clearly with other things on his mind than the backhand winners Harsh Mankad kept throwing his way, the eighth-seeded Indian faced a fight all through the match, and eventually managed to pull off a 3-6, 6-3, 6-1 victory after more than two hours. There were several instances which underlined the 21-year-old’s frustration at not being able to find a way past Mankad, both racket and ball being slammed into the walls many times instead of to the other side of the court.

Navdeep took advantage of a slightly unwell opponent to send the top seed packing, and it was his clean groundstrokes that provided the Korean with a whole host of problems. He will play the winner of the match between Divij Sharan and Huai-en Chang in the next round.

Vivek Shokeen stuck to his strengths, and his game worked perfectly as he dispatched Aditya Madkekar 6-1, 6-4. Delhi’s Ashutosh Singh fought bravely to take his first-round match, but third-seeded Spaniard Guillermo Alcaide successfully quelled his challenge 6-2, 3-6, 6-3.

Monday’s results (first round):

Singles: Navdeep Singh bt Kyu-tae Im (KOR) 6-3, 6-4; Karan Rastogi bt Harsh Mankad 3-6, 6-3, 6-1; Guillermo Alcaide (ESP) bt Ashutosh Singh 6-2, 3-6, 6-3; Sun Peng (CHN) bt Tsung-hua Yang (TPE) 6-1, 6-4; Vinod Sridhar bt Vishnu Vardhan 7-6 (6), 6-4; Vivek Shokeen bt Aditya Madkekar 6-1, 6-4.