Wild card Om Semwal saved five match balls on his way to a thrilling round-one win over Sebastian Salazar at the Indian Open 2026, securing his first victory in a World events match in the process.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The 22-year-old Mumbai resident had the home crowd on his side on the traditional courts at the Cricket Club of India, and made an impressively strong start against a player ranked 114 places above him, winning the first two games in 20 minutes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But Salazar turned the tide to send the match into a decider by winning the next two games, and looked to have almost completed the turnaround when he brought up three match balls at 10-7 up in the fifth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
What followed, though, was a dramatic 15 minutes of breathtaking action, beginning with Semwal saving those three match balls despite being on the back foot in parts of all three rallies, leaving everything out on court as he battled to keep his tournament alive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Equally as impressive as his effort levels was his willingness to go short and be aggressive, with a high backhand drop a particular highlight, landing inches above the tin when the match was on the line.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The drama showed no signs of letting up as the players went toe-to-toe into a tension-filled tiebreak, which featured dives, refereeing decisions and big celebrations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Salazar had further match balls at 12-11 and 15-14, with World No.223 Semwal having opportunities of his own at 11-10, 13-12, 14-13 and 17-16, all four of which came and went.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But the home favorite would finally get over the line at the fifth time of asking when a Salazar backhand found the tin at 18-17, though the reaction from Semwal was more of relief \u2013 and perhaps exhaustion \u2013 than anything else.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Semwal\u2019s win was one of two for Indian players on day one in Mumbai, with Tanvi Khanna battling past Germany\u2019s Maya Weisher in four games in the women\u2019s draw, where she will join top seed Anahat Singh and fifth seed Joshna Chinappa in round two.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Elsewhere on day one, Elise Romba knocked out Risa Sugimoto 11-7, 11-2, 11-8 in the only seedings upset on the women\u2019s side, while Yassin Shohdy came through a tough test against France\u2019s Manual Pacquemar in the men\u2019s draw.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The young Egyptian is ranked more than 100 places above his French opponent, but found himself a game down, and then 10-8 down in the second.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But saving those two game balls would prove to be decisive for Shohdy, as he closed out the tiebreak 13-11 and ran away with things from there, wrapping up games three and four 11-5, 11-7, to set up a second-round clash with Dewald van Niekerk.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Rpund One Results<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Women\u2019s: <\/strong>Breanne Flynn (IRL) bt. Lea Barbeau (FRA) 3-0: 11-4, 11-2, 14-12 (29m); Ambre Allinckx (SUI) bt. Tessa ter Sluis (NED) 3-1: 9-11, 11-6, 11-5, 11-6 (34m); Sof\u00eda Mateos (ESP) bt. Shameena Riaz (IND) 3-0: 11-2, 11-8, 11-4 (21m); Elise Romba (FRA) bt. Risa Sugimoto (JPN) 3-0: 11-7, 11-2, 11-8 (19m); Danielle Ray (CAN) bt. Rathika Suthanthira Seelan (IND) 3-0: 11-8, 11-3, 11-5 (23m); Tanvi Khanna (IND) bt. Maya Weishar (GER) 3-1: 15-13, 12-10, 7-11, 11-4 (37m); Farida Walid (EGY) bt. Nirupama Dubey (IND) 3-0: 11-7, 11-3, 11-4 (19m); Sehveetrraa Kumar (MAS) bt. Unnati Tripathi (IND) 3-0: 11-8, 11-5, 11-4 (18m)<\/p>\n\n\n\n Men\u2019s<\/strong>: Chi Him Wong (HKG) bt. Ayaan Vaziralli (IND) 3-0: 11-4, 11-6, 11-3 (27m); Yannik Omlor (GER) bt. Yash Fadte (IND) 3-0: 13-11, 11-9, 12-10 (48m); Ibrahim Elkabbani (EGY) bt. Suraj Kumar Chand (IND) 3-1: 12-14, 11-4, 11-1, 11-6 (48m); Om Semwal (IND) bt. Sebastian Salazar (MEX) 3-2: 11-6, 11-9, 8-11, 10-12, 19-17 (72m); Matthew Lai (HKG) bt. Mohammad Syafiq Kamal (MAS) 3-0: 11-5, 11-9, 11-8 (36m); Yassin Shohdy (EGY) bt. Manuel Paquemar (FRA) 3-1: 10-12, 13-11, 11-5, 11-7 (48m); Duncan Lee (MAS) bt. Ravindu Laksiri (SRI) 3-1: 9-11, 11-1, 11-5, 11-5 (38m); Ameeshenraj Chandaran (MAS) bt. Naoki Hayashi (JPN) 3-1: 8-11, 13-11, 11-4, 11-9 (54m)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Wild card Om Semwal saved five match balls on his way to a thrilling round-one win over Sebastian<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10704,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[37],"class_list":["post-10703","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-newsbeat","tag-squash"],"aioseo_notices":[],"featured_image_urls":{"full":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Om-Semwal.jpg",2560,1707,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Om-Semwal-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Om-Semwal-300x200.jpg",300,200,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Om-Semwal-768x512.jpg",640,427,true],"large":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Om-Semwal-1024x683.jpg",640,427,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Om-Semwal-1536x1024.jpg",1536,1024,true],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Om-Semwal-2048x1366.jpg",2048,1366,true],"morenews-large":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Om-Semwal-825x575.jpg",825,575,true],"morenews-medium":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Om-Semwal-590x410.jpg",590,410,true]},"author_info":{"info":["admin"]},"category_info":"Newsbeat<\/a>","tag_info":"Newsbeat","comment_count":"0","jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Om-Semwal.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10703","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10703"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10703\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10705,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10703\/revisions\/10705"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10704"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10703"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10703"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10703"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}