The seeded players, except Ramkumar Ramanathan, advanced to the quarterfinals on the third day of $50,000 KPIT-MSLTA Challenger at the Balewadi Sports Complex here on Wednesday.
Ramkumar, seeded No. 5, lost in the second round to Sadio Doumbia from France. The 21-year-old Indian, playing his 380th pro-circuit match, double faulted twice to concede the last two points of the second set and bowed out of the tournament. Other seeded players advanced to the quarterfinals.
The Russian top seed Evgeny Donskoy defeated Indian wild card entrant Dhruv Sunish 6-3, 6-2. The 26-year-year from Moscow powered his way to quarterfinals and will meet Doumbia.
Ramkumar’s exit from the second round of a Challenger event was an improvement over his first round losses at Ho Chi Min City, Genoa, Como in Italy, Aptos (USA). His best result this year has been reaching the semifinals of the Binghamton Challenger in July. He also reached the semifinals of the Samarkand (Uzbekistan) Challenger in May.
Ramkumar and Doumbia fought hard at the Centre Court and the first three games suggested that the match would turn out to be exhilarating.
Ramkumar had his moments sending down aces, but he missed at least a dozen opportunities and paid a heavy price. Playing with a never-say-die attitude the French player won two games without conceding a point and proceeded to win the match.
While Ramkumar’s exit was disappointing, Saketh Myneni and Prajnesh Gunneswaran, pitted against Indians, progressed to the last eight.
But after winning the first set and with an opportunity on serve to win the second set and match, Sumit Nagal faltered and lost to the lone overseas wild card player and No. 4 seed from Spain, Adrian Menendez-Maceiras.
The results: Men: Second round: 1- Evgeny Donskoy (Rus) bt Dhruv Sunish 6-3, 6-2; Duckhee Lee (Kor) bt Luca Margaroli (Sui) 7-6(3), 6-3; Saketh Myneni bt Sidharth Rawat 6-0, 2-6, 6-1; Sadio Doumbia (Fra) bt Ramkumar Ramanathan 6-2, 7-5; Nikola Milojevic (Srb) bt Fabien Reboul (Fra) 6-1, 7-6(3); Dmitry Popko (Kaz) bt Vishnu Vardhan 6-4, 6-4; Prajnesh Gunneswaran bt N. Vijay Sundar Prashanth 6-4, 6-2; Adrian Menendez-Maceiras (Esp) bt Sumit Nagal 6-7(2), 7-6(6), 6-4.
Doubles: Quarterfinals: Jeevan Nedunchezhiyan & Vijay Sundar Prashanth bt Vinayak Sharma Kaza & Mohit Mayur 6-2, 6-4; Nikola Milojevic and Danilo Petrovic (Srb) bt Sriram Balaji & Vishnu Vardhan 6-3, 6-4. First round: Leander Paes & Ramkumar Ramanathan bt Anvit Bendre & Sidharth Rawat 6-3, 6-4.
