The third of the Futures tournaments was billed a biggie after five players ranked in the 200s, on the way back from Melbourne, boosted the draw. But if Oren Motevassel, Gregory Carraz and Andrei Stoliarov were looking for easy points, they should have asked for Indian opponents.

Top seed Motevassel was the last to go, to Michael Kratochvil (Switzerland) 0-6 5-7 in 80 minutes. Second seed Carraz had preceded him, losing a titanic three-setter to Asian Games doubles gold medallist Srichaphan Paradorn in two hours ten minutes.

Qualifier Simon Aspelin, who had defeated India's best bet Syed Fazaluddin in the first round, sent Stoliarov to Calcutta, for theChallengers next week, with a 7-5 2-6 6-4 win.

The Indian challenge in the singles ended yesterday, with none of the four wild card entries able to capitalise on the patriotic fervour of Republic Day.

Nitin Kirtane and Harsh Mankad got a backdoor entry into the doubles second round, when their opponents failed to turn up.

Results

Seedings in prefix

Men's singles (2nd round): Michel Kratochvil (Swiss) bt 1-Oren Motevassel (Isr) 6-0 7-5; Paradorn Srichaphan (Thai) bt 2-Gregory Carraz (Fran) 6-4 6-7 (6-8) 6-3; Simon Aspelin (Swed) bt 3-Andrei Stoliarov (Rus) 7-5 2-6 6-4; 5-Mike Russell (US) bt Filippo Messori (Italy) 6-4 1-6 7-6 (7-4); Artem Derepasko (Rus) bt 6-Kalle Flygt (Swed) 7-6 (9-7) 7-6 (7-4); Amir Hadad (Isr) bt Noam Okun (Isr) 7-5 6-7 (4-7) 6-3; Cedric Kauffmann (Fran) bt Boris Borgula (Slovak) 6-1 6-4; Filip Kaskak (Slovak) bt Jamie Delgado (GBR) 6-3 6-4

Men doubles (1st round):1-S Aspelin & J Landsberg (Swed) bt Vijay Kannan & G Natekar (Ind) 6-3 6-0; S Larose & JRobichaud (Can) bt G Carraz & D Golovanov 6-3 7-6; Marcus Hilpert & Mike Russell bt A Rueb & T Meringoff 6-3 6-2.