India's top tennis ace Somdev Devvarman crashed out in the first round of the Emami Kolkata Open at the Bengal Tennis Association Complex here Tuesday
Somdev Devvarman
Kolkata: India's top tennis ace Somdev Devvarman crashed out in the first round of the Emami Kolkata Open at the Bengal Tennis Association Complex here Tuesday.
Somdev Devvarman. Pic/AFP
Tamil Nadu's Ramkumar Ramanathan, who has been training in Barcelona for the last three years, clinched the encounter 4-6, 6-3, 6-4, which lasted for two hours and 19 minutes at the hard courts here.
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Ramanthan dropped the opening set in 46 minutes. In the eighth game of the first set and at 3-4 on serve, Devvarman struggled to save two break points and made it 4-4.
In the very next game Ramanathan was broken, thereby giving his opponent a lead of 5-4, which Somdev consolidated by holding on to his serve.
In the second set, Ramanathan took a quick lead of 3-0, Devvarman made it 1-3 but ultimately lost the set 3-6 in a span of 41 minutes.
In the deciding set, it was a treat for the tennis lovers as the Tamil Nadu talent came back from 1-4 down with sheer determination and a "refuse to give up" attitude.
After playing 14 points in the sixth game including a close line call going against him, Ramanathan succeeded to hold his serve, making it 4-2 in favour of his rival. With two consecutive immensely powerful return of serves, Ramanathan managed to comeback in the match.
At 5-4 and on serve, Ramanathan was down by 15-40 when he came back to deuce the score. Here Ramanathan saved two break points to gain a game point as well as the match point, Ramanathan served for the match to clinch the game 6-4.
Australian fifth seed Luke Saville fought hard before going down against last year's quarterfinalist Ti Chen of Taipei 3-6, 6-3, 2-6.
Wild card entrant and 18-year-old, Haryana's Sumit Nagal, currently training in Germany, went down against World No.261 Egor Gerasimov from Belarus. Gerasimov won by a close 7-5,7-5 to enter the pre-quarterfinals.
World No.297 Yuki Bhambri had it easy against Spain's Enrique Lopez Perez ranked little higher at 224, as the former won by a convincing 6-2, 6-2 margin.
In doubles, Somdev ultimately earned a reason to smile as he partnered with Jeevan Nedunchezhiyan to upset the third seeded duo of Saketh Myneni and Sanam Singh by a nail-biting 2-6, 6-2(10-5).
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