Wimbledon 2019: Prajnesh Gunnesaran Faced No. 17 Milos Raonic In The First Round

On Friday, India's best singles player, Prajnesh Gunnesaran, attracted the world number 17, Milos Raonic of Canada, as his first-round opponent in the Wimbledon Championship that started on Monday.
Prajnesh lefty, ranked 94th in the world, will make his inaugural appearance on the sacred turf pitches at Wimbledon.
Grass is not the preferred surface of Prajnesh. He excels in hard courts. It will be his third consecutive appearance in the Grand Slam events of this season, after having gone out in the first round at the Australian Open and at the French Open. Prajnesh is the only Indian in the singles main draw, as Ramkumar Ramanathan and Ankita Raina came out after losing their respective matches in the second round.
In the men's doubles, Divij Sharan and his Brazilian partner Marcelo Demoliner will open their campaign against the German pair 13 of Kevin Krawietz and Andreas Mies. Rohan Bopanna and Pablo Cuevas face Marcus Daniell of New Zealand and Wesley Koolhof of the Netherlands. The Indian team of Jeevan Nedunchezhiyan and Purav Raja has faced the Australian veteran Lleyton Hewitt and his compatriot Jordan Thompson. Veteran Leander Paes and Benoit Paire will face the Kazakh pair of Alexander Bublik and Mikhail Kukushkin. The mixed doubles draw will be announced next week.
Prajnesh Gunneswaran is born on November 12, 1989 and is an Indian tennis player. He has won 2 ATP Challenger and 8 ITF titles in singles and 1 ITF title in doubles. He represents India in the Davis Cup. At the Asian Games 2018, in Jakarta, he won the bronze medal in the men's individual tennis event. He is currently the top ranked Indian player and the sixth Indian tennis player in the open era.
Gunneswaran started the year with the Maharashtra Open, where he got a wild card in the main draw. He lost Michael Mmoh in straight sets in the first round. At the Australian Open, he won the qualifying competition to debut in the main draw at a Grand Slam event. He lost in the first round in straight sets against Frances Tiafoe. On February 11, 2019, then the singles ranking of '97, making its debut in the 100 best singles rankings.
The year 2018 proved to be a great year for Gunneswaran. He reached 4 singles finals of the ATP Challenger winning 2 of them. He won his first ATP Challenger singles title in Kunming Challenger by defeating Mohamed Safwat in the final. In an Indian final, he defeated compatriot Saketh Myneni at Bengaluru Challenger to lift his second singles trophy of the race. He finished as runner-up in the Ningbo Challenger and Pune Challenger events. He also had his second ATP Challenger doubles final at Santaizi ATP Challenger held in Taipei in April, where he teamed up with compatriot Saketh Myneni.
At the French Open, Gunneswaran lost in the final qualifying round. However, he was chosen as a lucky loser after Nick Kyrgios withdrew from the competition. However, Gunneswaran could not participate in the main draw.
In August, he won the bronze medal in the men's tennis event at the 2018 Asian Games in Jakarta. He became the Indian male athlete sex in winning a medal in tennis at the Asian Games.
Gunneswaran started the year as number 243 in the world in the ranking of individuals. On the back of his solid performance in the challenger giraffe, he finished the season with a high career position of 104 and in the process; he has become the best ranked player.
Gunneswaran reached the classification of the BNP Paribas 2019 Open and defeated Frenchman Benoit Paire in straight sets to enter the second round. He won his second match of the round again the number 17 seed Nikoloz Basilashvili in three sets to make the third round of an ATP 1000 Tournament for the first time in his career. The fantastic career of Prajnesh Gunneswaran in Indian Wells Masters came to an end in a consecutive loss to the great serve Ivo Karlovic in the third round. This was the first edition of Prajnesh in an ATP Masters event. He then won the qualifying competition at the Miami Open, achieving a consecutive presentation of the main draw at a master’s event. He lost in the first round to Jaume Munar.
In April, Prajnesh won his first ATP Challenger Singles final of the season at Anning Challenger. He entered the event as defending champion but could not defend his title. He lost the final against British player Jay Clarke. With the result, the best singles ranking of 75 rose to his career.
By: Preeti Narula
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