Prajnesh Gunneswaran battled for two hours and 21 minutes before suffering an agonising 6-7, 6-3, 5-7 loss against German fourth seed Maximilian Marterer in Q1 of the Tata Open Maharashtra, a $714,000 ATP 250 Series men’s tennis event, in Pune on Saturday.

Gunneswaran, 33, had lost to Marterer on both the previous occasions they had met — in the qualifying rounds of Cincinnati Masters and the Australian Open, both in straight sets, this year.

The Chennai left-hander fought back from a break down to be 0-3 to level the scores at 5-5. He even had a mini lead of 2-0 in the tiebreaker but failed to hold on to it as he mistimed his forehands on a couple of occasions.

His game was much better in the second set while Marterer also began to struggle with his serve, making four double-faults in the set. The Indian got his first set against the German in style, with an ace down the middle.

But the decider was more evenly contested with both engaging in fierce rallies from the baseline. Just when it seemed it was headed for another shoot-out, with Gunneswaran up 40-15 in the 12th game, the Indian struggled to close out the game.

The first serve completely deserted him and although he saved two match points after deuce, Marterer, sensing his chance, heaped the pressure on his rival. Gunneswaran wilted the third time, sending a forehand long.

After the match, Gunnewaran analysed his performance:

Was a slow start. I lost serve in the second game. It was just the one break for the first set. I had a couple of 30-all games, but I didn’t really keep the ball in play in those situations and lost the set. Second set, of course, it was going close, both of us had some chances, and I converted later in the set. And I think I played a good game to break and then again, close, even serving it out, held my nerve and got through that one. He was attacking Well with this forehand, he was hurting me with the inside out at the beginning of the match. So I had to change that pattern a little bit, which I did later.
And then in the third set, I feel that my percentage dropped a lot on the first serve. And throughout the set, I think that percentage is low, other than maybe the first couple of games. And when you give too many second serves, there’s always a risk that maybe he plays a couple of good points and this is a pressure situation 30-40, 15-30, stuff like that. So unfortunately, that happened.

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In both the match points he missed early, and he gave me a chance to come back. I didn’t use that, because I think I could have definitely held that service game, even though I was down to match points, because I made the serve, he missed both times very early in the rally. So I had easy chances to hold on to that game and go to the breaker.

Again, I also think I didn’t make enough returns in the third set. I was returning much better the first two sets and missed a few too many. He had he had too many easy service games and I had too many service games when I was just starting second. So it was bound to happen that at some point, you know, he will break or he would have break chances. So I think that’s just the way it went. I had to find a way to make more percentage. That didn’t happen today. And that’s pretty much why I lost.

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He plays very offensive. I like to counter attack, but he’s very good at what he does. So when he’s on the offensive, it’s pretty difficult to stay in the rally. He hits pretty hard with the forehand, and he has a big serve. I would say that he missed a lot of serves today, very few inches away from the lines. He could have served a lot better because I feel like he was missing by barely anything. I could have easily count 20 serves that he missed like that. All of them could have been aces, potentially, in other matches. I think it’s a little bit of altitude here. He just didn’t find the range today. So then would have been an even tougher match.

I would say given the circumstances I played well. But under pressure, I don’t think I played well enough today. Whenever I had chances in the break that I was up, I should have capitalised that. I think I didn’t do those things. So today, I would say in pressure points I didn’t play well.

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Yes, that game plus the tiebreaker leading (2-0) in the first set. Both of those situations I didn’t make it count. And I also feel that I didn’t play good games. It’s not that if he played a good game and forced the mistakes, then I would say, ‘Okay, I accept that’. But I feel like I kind of gave it away that a little bit, drop level, didn’t hold my view and so that cost me.

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You know 2022, the injury I’ve been carrying, my wrist, has been bothering me a lot. I haven’t been able to play fully, you know, I was not fit. Not physically good either because I was practising very little. That’s why I try to take a lot of time off, started my preseason early, so I feel that I’m playing a lot better now, physically much better, and starting to use my forehand better. Still a ways to go before I get everything 100 percent. But I’m injury free now and able to train a lot. So I hope that in the next month or so I can pick up a little bit more and then I’ll be you know hopefully picking up some wins.