Ramkumar ousts Nagal, enters last-4

Pune, November 15 

Ramkumar Ramanathan scored an upset win over  Sumit Nagal in an exciting contest to enter the semifinals of the KPIT MSLTA Challenger here today.

In their first meeting this year at the Challenger level, 25-year-old Ramanathan, seeded sixth, notched up a 6-4 7-6(5) win over India No. 2 Nagal, seeded third, in a 97-minute thriller. Ramanathan broke Nagal in the 10th game to take the first set 6-4.  In the second set, Nagal and Ramanathan broken twice each before Ramanathan won a see-sawing tie-break.

Ramanathan will now take on second seed James Duckworth, who overcame Sasikumar Mukund 7-5 4-6 7-5 in a 2-hour and 16-minute battle.

In the doubles section, top seeds Purav Raja and Ramkumar Ramanathan registered a dominant 6-3 6-4 win over Tunisia’s Aziz Dougaz and France’s Calvin Hemery in the quarterfinals.

In the semifinals, the Indian pair will take on fourth seeds Brydan Klein of Great Britian and N Vijay Sundar Prashanth of India, who easily beat the Indian pair of  Niki Poonacha and Annirudh Chandrasekar 6-2 6-3. — PTI