Delhi Open ATP Challenger 2025: Geerts beats Mukund in pre-quarterfinals; Schoolkate advances to next round
Delhi Open ATP Challenger 2025: Geerts beats Mukund in pre-quarterfinals; Schoolkate advances to next round
Michael Geerts of Belgium scotched the Indian hopes as he stretched S Mukund to his wit’s end on way to a 6-4, 7-5 victory in the pre-quarterfinals of the Dafanews $100,000 Delhi Open Challenger tennis tournament at the DLTA Complex on Wednesday.
While Mukund played an intense game of high quality in spells, the Belgian was consistently strong in wriggling out of tight situations and capitalised on the chances to make it a straightforward affair.
Mukund showed what he could by breaking serve in the tenth game of the second set when Geerts was serving for the match. It was an exceptional standard backed by admirable athleticism, but was too late to revive the chances for Mukund, as Geerts was gritty in serving out the match the second time.
In another lively match, third seed Tristan Schoolkate of Australia warded off a stiff challenge from the towering Valentin Vacherot of Monaco to pull through in three sets.
It was the first win in three meetings for the 23-year-old Schoolkate who had won only a total of nine games in the earlier two matches against Vacherot.
In doubles, NIki Poonacha in partnership with Courtney Lock of Zimbabwe played an entertaining all-round game, delivering crisp volleys at the crunch to take the second seeds into the quarterfinals, with a 10-6 victory in the super tie-break against the Czech pair of Marek Gengel and Dalibor Svrcina.
Ramkumar Ramanathan and Karan Singh had their chances against Shintaro Mochizuki and Kaito Uesugi, but a few errors saw the duo lose 7-10 in the super tie-break.
