India's Somdev Devvarman exits Australian Open in first round, loses to Lopez in straight sets

Somdev Devvarman

Melbourne, Jan 14 (IANS): Somdev Devvarman, India’s lone singles entry at the Australian Open, lost his opening round match against 26th seed Feliciano Lopez of Spain here Tuesday.

The unseeded Indian showed his fighting spirit throughout the contest before going down 4-6, 4-6, 6-7 (2) to the World No. 27 in two hours and 13 minutes. In the third set, Devvarman came back from a break down twice – the second time when Lopez was serving for the match at 6-5 – to force a tie-breaker. But Lopez proved too strong in the breaker, winning it 7-2 to clinch the third set and with it the match.

Devvarman had made the second round at Melbourne Park in 2013, but this is his second successive first-round exit, after losing to Ramkumar Ramanathan in the Chennai Open first round earlier this month.