Prajnesh Gunneswaran stayed on track for his first-ever title defence with a hard-fought win in the semi-finals of the ATP Challenger in Anning, China on Saturday.

The India No 1 needed three sets to beat Polish second seed Kamil Majchrzak 7-6(5), 6-7(3), 6-4 in the semi-finals of the clay-court event. This was the first set the Indian second seed dropped at the tournament. Incidentally, the 29-year-old had played a three-setter against the Poland player in the semi-finals last year as well.

Prajnesh will now face Jay Clarke, who beat Goncalo Oliveira 6-3, 6-2 in the final. The Indian had beaten Clarke in the Miami Open qualifiers last month.

Read yesterday’s Indian tennis wrap here

It was a topsy-turvy first set and Prajnesh raced ahead with the early break but was broken while serving for he set. He regrouped and claimed the Tiebreak but was pushed to the brink in the second set in another Tiebreak. The defending champion however held his nerve and rallied to take the decider with the one break of serve.

Prajnesh had won his first ATP challenger title on the clay courts of Anning last year, beating Egyptian Mohamed Safwat in the final. The title had kick-started a breakthrough year for him which saw him break into the Top 100.

You can watch some highlights of Prajnesh’s match here

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Meanwhile, in the doubles, N Sriram Balaji and partner James Cerretani went down in the quarter-final. It was a tough three-setter that they lost 7-6(9),4-6,11-9 to Sun Fajing and Bai Yan.

At the $25K ITF event in Shymkent, Kazakhstan, the Indian duo of Sidharth Rawat and Manish Sureshkumar finished as runners-up in the doubles. The duo went down 4-6, 2-6 to Teymuraz Gabashvili and Ivan Liutarevich in the final.