Indian tennis star Prajnesh Gunneswaran suffered a major blow as he bowed out of the ongoing BNP Paribas Open following a straight-sets defeat against Croatia's Ivo Karlovic in the third round of the tournament in California on Tuesday.
The 29-year-old failed to continue his good show at the Indian Wells so far and slumped to a 3-6, 6-7 (3-7) defeat at the hands of Karlovic in a thrilling last-32 clash that lasted just one hour and 13 minutes.
Notably, it was Prajnesh's first-ever appearance in an Association of Tennis Professional (ATP) event and his decent performance in the tournament saw him gain 61 ranking point--something which will see him climb up to the career-best 82nd position.
Meanwhile, Karlovic has now set up a clash against seventh-seed Dominic Thiem of Austria.
Earlier, Prajnesh shocked France's Benoit Paire 7-6 (5), 6-4 in the opening match of his first singles main draw at the Masters level before he bounced back from a set down to clinch a hard-fought 6-4, 6-7 (6-8), 7-6 (7-4) win over 17th seed Nikoloz Basilashvili of Georgia in the last-64 clash.
In men's doubles event, the Indian duo of Leander Paes and his partner Denis Shapovalov of Israel failed to capitalize on their first set win and suffered a 6-4, 1-6, 8-10 defeat against the Serbian-Italian pair of Novak Djokovic and Fabio Fognini to crash out of the tournament.
