Indian tennis round-up: Yuki Bhambri and Divij Sharan in Tashkent final, Ramkumar Ramanathan exits Fairfield
The Indian men’s doubles duo of Yuki Bhambri and Divij Sharan produced a fabulous show of resilience to come back from a set down and enter the final of the $150, 000 Tashkent Challenger in Uzbekistan on Thursday. Bhambri and Sharan conceded the first set 3-6 to the Spanish combine of Guillermo Garcia-Lopez and Enrique Lopez-Perez from where they rebounded in style for the 3-6, 7-5, 10-6 win in 1 hour 23 minutes.
In Friday’s summit clash, the Indians will take on the second seeds Hans Podlipnik-Castillo and Andrei Vasilevski, who beat the third seeded pair of James Cerretani and Marc Polmans, 7-6(1), 7-6(4).
This is the second Challenger final for Sharan this year, who earlier won at Bordeaux alongside Purav Raja. For Yuki, this is his first doubles final of the 2017 season.
Bhambri and Sharan had been playing with a lot of confidence at this tournament throughout the week and had even accounted for the top seeds Guillermo Duran and Andres Molteni in the first round with an effortless 6-4, 6-2 win.
In the quarter-finals too, they did not drop a set and produced a 6-3, 7-6(3) win over Romain Arneodo and Denys Molchanov.
The semi-final proved to be a tough encounter for the Indians, who yielded a service break to gift the opening set to their Spanish opponents.
The second set turned out to be a breakfest with as many as five breaks traded between the pairs. Bhambri and Sharan were able to break Garcia-Lopez and Lopez-Perez three times that helped them grab the set and level the tie.
They kept that momentum going in the match tie-break and pulled off the win. The teams finished at par in the total points tally with each of them grabbing 66.
The doubles draw had another Indian pair -- Jeevan Nedunchezhiyan and Vishnu Vardhan, who were seeded fourth. But they suffered a first round defeat at the hands of Thomas Fabbiano and Luca Margaroli.
In singles, the seventh seeded Yuki Bhambri’s run came to an end in the second round. Former US Open junior doubles champion Kamil Majchrzak of Poland beat him 6-4, 1-6, 6-4.
Also read: Two wins for Yuki in Tashkent Challenger
Ramkumar out of Fairfield Challenger
Meanwhile, Ramkumar Ramanathan’s campaign came to an end at the ongoing $100, 000 Fairfield Challenger in the USA after he and Hans Hach Verdugo went down 2-6, 5-7 to the fourth seeds Brydan Klein and Joe Salisbury in the first round.
Ramanathan’s singles challenge too had come to a halt in the first round following his 4-6, 6-4, 4-6 defeat to Tobias Kamke.