Fourth-seeded Ramkumar Ramanathan scored a hard fought 7-6(6), 7-5 win over Sergio Martos Gornes of Spain and entered the quarterfinals of the Vasan Eye Care-ITF men’s Futures tennis championship here on Wednesday.
Except for the fifth and eighth games where Ramkumar and Gornes fended off a break point each respectively, they held serve with ease in the first set.
Up 6-3 in the tiebreaker, Ramkumar nearly lost the plot. After his opponent secured two points on serve, Ramkumar’s double-fault made it 6-6. The Indian, however, held his nerve to bag the next two points and clinched the set. The see-saw battle continued in the second set. Ramkumar, with two breaks, surged to a 3-0 lead. But the Spaniard fought back, with breaks in the fourth and eighth games, to restore parity.
At 5-5, Ramkumar gained a decisive break when his rival double-faulted at a crucial juncture. The fourth seed came up with some big serves in the next game to settle the issue.
In another second round match, top seed Enrique Lopez-Perez of Spain beat N. Vijay Sundar Prashanth 6-0, 6-3.
The results:Singles (second round): Ramkumar Ramanathan bt Sergio Martos Gornes (Esp) 7-6(6), 7-5; Giorgio Portaluri (Ita) bt Akash Wagh 6-2, 6-1; Lucas Renard (Swe) bt Ronit Singh Bisht 6-1, 6-2; N. Sriram Balaji bt Kaza Vinayak Sharma 6-2, 6-3; Enrique Lopez-Perez (Esp) bt N. Vijay Sundar Prashanth 6-0, 6-3; Jeevan Nedunchezhiyan bt P.C. Vignesh 6-3, 6-0; Mathias Bourgue (Fra) bt Suraj R. Prabodh 6-1, 6-1; Vijayant Malik bt Kunal Anand 6-4, 6-2.
Doubles (quarterfinals): Nitten Kirrtane & Sasi Kumar Mukund bt Sagar Ahuja & Chandril Sood 7-5, 3-6, 10-6; Arun Prakash Rajagopalan & Ramkumar Ramanathan bt Mohit Mayur Jayaprakash & Akash Wagh 6-2, 6-2; Kaza Vinayak Sharma & P.C. Vignesh bt Jannis Liniger (Sui) & N. Vijay Sundar Prashanth 5-7, 7-6(8), 10-8; Giorgio Portaluri (Ita) & Lucas Renard (Swe) bt Sergio Martos Gornes & Pol Toledo Bague (Esp) 6-3, 6-4.
