‘Lucky’ Prajnesh makes main draw of Australian Open

MELBOURNE: Indian tennis player Prajnesh Gunnewaran on Saturday sneaked into the Australian Open men’s singles main draw as a lucky loser and may run into world number two Novak Djokovic if he clears the first hurdle.

The Indian left-hander had lost the final qualifying round to Latvia’s Ernests Gulbis in straight sets but was fortunate to make the main draw as one of the direct entrants withdrew from the tournament.

It will be Prajnesh’s fifth straight appearance in the main draw of a Grand Slam, his first being in the same tournament.

Last year also, the Chennai player had come through the qualifiers in Melbourne but made the cut at Wimbledon, French Open and the US Open owing to better ranking.

A good draw has put Prajnesh against Japanese Tatsuma Ito, ranked 22 places below the Indian at 144. This will be the first meeting of the duo.

Prajnesh said he is not looking beyond the first round.

“I am very happy I got the Lucky Loser spot and I am only thinking about my first round now. I will try to make the most of it. Ito is a very good player. He was in top-100 and I will need to play well to beat him,” Prajnesh told PTI from Melbourne.

The hard-working Prajnesh lost his top-100 rank towards as he suffered a few reversals, distracted by falling health of his father, who passed away in 2019.

Prajnesh has not managed to progress beyond the first round in any of his four Grand Slam appearances so far.