Melbourne: India's top-ranked tennis player Prajnesh Gunneswaran lost to Japanese Tatsuma Ito in the first round of the Australian Open on Tuesday.
Rain had played spoilsport with the match originally having been scheduled for Monday.
Prajnesh, who lost the first two sets without any fight, showed resilience in the third set when he broke Ito to take a 2-1 lead. The Japanese broke back immediately, then the World No 122 ranked Indian erred again when the set was level at 5-5.
He eventually lost in straight sets 6-4 6-2 7-5 against the Japanese wild card, ranked 22 places below him, in a tie that lasted for two hours and one minute.
Prajnesh entered the main draw of the men's singles event as a lucky loser in the qualifiers and was slated to take on Ito, ranked 144th in the world on Monday. He is ranked World No.122.
A win for Prajnesh would have pitted him against World No. 2 Novak Djokovic in the second round.
This was Prajnesh's fifth straight appearance in the main draw of a Grand Slam event having earlier played in the Wimbledon, French Open and the US Open due to his better rankings.
SINGLES CAMPAIGN ENDS
With Prajnesh's ouster, India's campaign ended in the singles event of the Australian Open.
In men's doubles, India's Divij Sharan and his Kiwi partner Artem Sitak will face Spanish-Portuguese pair of Pablo Carreno Busta and Joao Sousa in the opening round, while Rohan Bopanna and Japanese Yasutaka Uchiyama will play 13th seeded American brothers, Bob and Mike Bryan.
In the women's doubles, Sania Mirza and Nadiia Kichenok of Ukraine will take on the Chinese combination of Xinyun Han and Lin Zhu in the opening round.
Returning to the court after a two-year maternity break, Sania had won the Hobart International title recently partnering Kichenok.
(With inputs from Agencies)