Top seeds Sriram Balaji and Vishnu Vardhan clinched the doubles title in the $75,000 Challenger tennis tournament at Samarkand, Uzbekistan, on Saturday.
The Indian pair got a walkover in the final from Mikhail Elgin and Denis Istomin, who had incidentally beaten the other Indian pair of Saketh Myneni and Vijay Sundar Prashanth in the quarterfinals.
Earlier, Balaji and Vishnu defeated fourth seeds Timur Khabibulin and Vladyslav Manafov. The Indian pair, which had won the Chennai Challenger this season, did not drop a set in clinching the doubles trophy.
“We should get into the Wimbledon qualifying event with the new ranking. So, we come home to get the visa done and play events in UK leading up to Wimbledon,” said Balaji.
Balaji and Vishnu had won nine titles last season, including three Challengers, and have been training to make the Grand Slam stage.
In the $25,000 ITF women’s event in China, Rutuja Bhosale lost in straight sets to Yue Yuan of China in the semifinals.
The results:
$75,000 Challenger men, Samarkand (Uzbekistan): Doubles, final: Sriram Balaji & Vishnu Vardhan w/o Mikhail Elgin (Rus) & Denis Istomin (Kaz); Semifinals: Balaji & Vishnu bt Timur Khabibulin (Kaz) & Vladyslav Manafov (Ukr) 7-6(1), 6-3.
$25,000 ITF women, Wuhan (China): Singles, semifinals: Yue Yuan (Chn) bt Rutuja Bhosale 6-4, 6-4.
