You don't enjoy the same benefits when you belong to the diaspora, Arvind Parmar, a Great Britain player of Indian origin, realised. Ranked higher than any of the Indian wild card holders, he was denied the walk-easy channel, after Slovak Filip Kaskak (ranked 967), winner of the Ahmedabad leg, was given a special bye into the main draw. Parmar (463) bowed out in the second qualifying round today.

The tournament proper begins tomorrow after the final qualifying round, which will supply eight players to the draw of 32. The draw has been strengthened by the inclusion of five players with below-300 ranks,many of them on their way home after being sucked in the Australian Open qualifiers.

That the draw here is tougher is evidenced by the fact that Srinath, seeded fourth at Ahmedabad, would not have featured in the top ten if he had played here.

RESULTS (qualifying 2nd round)

M Polessnig (Aut) bt Arvind Parmar (GBr) 7-5 6-3; Iain Bates (GBr) bt Luben Pampoulov (Aut) 2-6 6-4 7-5; Andrew Rueb (USA) bt Arta Dyson (Can) 6-3 6-1; Aisam Qureshi (Pak) bt Cedric Kauffmann (Fra) 7-5 2-6 6-1; J Robichaud (Can) bt Mustafa Ghouse (Ind) 7-5 6-3; Ivo Karlovic (Cro) bt Nitin Kirtane (Ind) 6-1 6-2; Denis Golovanov (Rus) bt Mikael Maatta (Swe) 6-4 0-6 6-3; Todd Meringoff (USA) bt Giuseppe Menga (Ita) 6-4 6-2; S Aspelin (Swe) bt Andrei Nossov (Rus) 6-1 6-1; M Hilpert (Ger) bt Anton Kokruin (Uzb) 6-3 6-3; Andy Ram (Isr) bt Andrea Serra (Ita) 6-4 1-6 6-3; J Landsberg (Swe) bt Rohan Bopanna (Ind) 6-0 6-3; A Derepasko (Rus) bt Jernej Karner (Slo) 6-0 6-3; Minh Le (USA) bt Andrei Younzyi (Rus) 7-5 4-6 6-1.

Good dayfor Neel

Youngster Neel Patel had a good day winning both his matches in the final qualifying round of the 7-Up State Ranking Tennis Tournament being played at the Garden Tennis Academy, Azad Maidan here today.

He won against Harsh Mehta 8-3 in the under-16 section and beat R Bhotica by the same margin in the under-14 section also.

RESULTS (FINAL QUALIFYING ROUND)

Boys under-16: Yogesh Sakpal bt Saket Salogi 8-1; Ganesh Salve bt Vivek Salgava 8-3; Ayush Wadhwan bt Kikesh Joshi 8-2; Pranav Shah bt Karan Chada 8-0; Karan Mordani bt Manish Handa 8-1; Alon Moses bt Akhil Mehra 8-0; Shikur Thakur bt Ashvic Khurana 8-3; Tarang Bhargava bt Girish Marathe 8-2; Chetan Kapur bt Nehal Advani 8-6 (7-3); Aniket Ghaskavi bt Anupam Sonalkar 8-2; Dewang Shah bt Rohan shsh 8-6; Aditya Medkekar bt Bhushan 8-0; Neel Patel bt Harsh Mehta 8-3.

Boys under-14: Pranav Shah bt Rikin Kapadia 8-2; Marlon Coelho bt Dhruval Kothari 8-6 (7-3); Neel Patel bt R Bhotica 8-3; Abhishek Nayak bt Karan Jhaveri 8-6(7-4); Kaushal Mahale bt Kshitij Shetty 8-4; Anupam Sonalkar bt Karan Mordani 8-1; Marvin Coelho bt Bobby Arora 8-0; Sidesh Mayekar bt Nikhil Fatedar 8-2; Abhishek Jha bt Ajay Pawar 8-1; Bharat Suvarna bt Dennis D'Sa 8-3; Kenneth Quodros bt Tejasvi Rao 8-5; Bhavik Khander bt Mirang Manek 8-0; Bhavik Shelarka bt Abhishek Mahadik 8-0; Nihal Advani bt Dev Mehta 8-1; Albert Aloysious bt Rishab Kochar 8-3; Harsh Mehta bt Aniket Ghaskavi 8-4.

Boys under-12: Debendra Das bt Warren Fernandes 8-4; Pratik Gandhi bt Pragnesh Poddar 8-2; Aniruddha Kowtha bt Karan Walia 8-4; Anuj Arora bt H Khorakiwalla 8-1; P Siddharth bt Mihir Dalvi 8-6; Ankesh Bharghava bt Tanuj Mehta 8-0; Rikhin Kapadia bt A Subramanium 8-1; Shantanu Sahey bnt Shreyas Pathak 8-4; Bhavik Shelarka bt Swapnil Akut 8-0; Utkarsh Kasliwal bt Pratap Kaul 8-6; Tushar Sharma bt Anugrah Chandra 8-5; Bhavik Khandar bt Rachit Jain 8-0; Rishi Patel bt Abhishek Mahadik 8-5; Viraj Shah bt Rutvik Sheth 8-6; Salil Telang bt Shyamal Sura 8-6; AjitedhChoughule bt Milhail Caldhana 8-2.

Boys under-10: Maharshi Barot bt Hirak Laguchi 7-6 (8-6); Abhishek Dattan bt Dipen Patel 7-1; Abhishek Gupta bt Jay Dalal 7-2; Aditya Pawar bt Vishwam Botica 7-4; Dhruv Kapur bt Sanket Bapat 7-6 (9-7); Varun Purandare bt Pawan Anand 7-5; Aditya Shah bt Gurjot Singh 7-1.