Porto Challenger 2024: Ramkumar Ramanathan / Joshua Paris lose men’s doubles final to top seed
Indian tennis player Ramkumar Ramanathan and his partner from Great Britain Joshua Paris suffered a defeat to Dutch and Great Britain duo Sander Arends and Luke Johnson in the ATP 125 Porto Challenger 2024 final to end as runners-up in the men's doubles event.
The final clash came to an end in two straight sets by 6-3, 6-2 as the Indo-English pair couldn’t put up a tough fight against top-seeded pair Sander Arends and Luke Johnson.
The competition started in the Round of 16 for the Indo-English pair, defeating Pedro Araujo and Joao Domingues from Portugal by 6-4, 6-4. In the quarter-final, Ramanathan and Paris registered a thrilling win over the Indian pair Vijay Sundar Prashanth and Jeevan N by 6-7 (3-7), 6-4, 10-7 to make it to the semi-finals.
The semi-final turned out to be another thrilling affair against France and Indian pair Arthur Reymond and Arjun Kadhe. The Indo-English pair bagged a win by 6-7 (2-7), 6-4, and 10-5 to storm into the final of the €148,625 Challenger tennis tournament in Porto, Portugal.
Ramkumar Ramanathan broke into top 100 in ATP doubles rankings in 2022
Ramkumar Ramanathan secured his maiden ATP title victory in Adelaide International along with his partner Rohan Bopanna in January 2022.
Later in the same month, Ramkumar went on to win his second ATP title with Rohan Bopanna at the Maharashtra Open, defeating the Australian pair of Luke Saville and John-Patrick Smith in the final.
Following these two title wins, Ramkumar Ramanathan broke into ATP Top 100 doubles rankings, achieving his career-best ranking of World No. 58 in August 2022. However, he is currently holding the World No. 155 ranking in men’s doubles.
Notably, the Porto Challenger competition is a professional tennis campaign in Portugal played on clay courts as part of the ATP Challenger Series. The first edition of the tournament was played in 1982.
Ramkumar took up tennis as his competitive sport at the age of five after being introduced to the sport by his father. Notably, he represented India in the Davis Cup, and in the year 2018 he emerged as the first Indian tennis player to reach an ATP Tour Singles final since Somdev Devvarman in 2011.