Chennai: Local fellow Prakash Amirtraj lost his first-round match to German fifth-seeded player Rainer Schuettler 2-6, 6-4, 1-6, even as Rohan Bopanna made his passage to the main draw after winning his final qualifying match in the $450,000 ATP Chennai Open here.

Amritraj had no answers to the tactical play of the German player. From the last seven years, Amritraj has been favoured with a wild card entry for the tournament. From the last few months, the Davis Cupper is being criticized for his continued poor show at the lone ATP event in India.

After losing the match, Prakash Amritraj said," The beginning of the 3rd set was tight and i got a little frustrated and the crowd got onto me a little. but they were really good."

On the other hand, match winner Schuettler said, "The victory man said, "Nothing was going on in my mind during the second set. I played a litle defensive and prakash served really well I think he deserved the second set."

Meanwhile, Bopanna remained the lone Indian to make the main round among 18 others who took part in qualifying. Playing the final qualifying round, Bopanna, resisted the pressure to bounce back after losing the first set to Michael Berrer of Germany.

Bopanna tightened his grip on his baseline game and then maintained it to win the match 4-6, 6-3, 6-4.

"I have improved on my game and strategy. When I was down 1-3 in the final set, I was a bit tired but still got back into the game. People think I have given up singles play but it is not like that," said an elated Bopanna.

Main draw (First round): Marin Cilic (Cro) bt Alberto Martin (Esp) 6-4, 6-4; Simon Greul (Ger) bt Daniel Gimeno-Traver (Esp) 6-3, 6-4; Bjorn Phau (Ger) bt Santiago Ventura
(Esp) 6-2, 7-5; Rainer Schuettler (Ger) bt Prakash Amritraj (Ind) 6-2, 4-6, 6-1.