Fatigue forces Ramkumar’s early exit

Giorgio Portaluri recovered from a miserable start to prevail over Ramkumar Ramanathan in the first round. Photo: S. James

Third seed Ramkumar Ramanathan retired due to fatigue to hand a 0-6, 6-3, 5-0 win to Giorgio Portaluri of Italy in the first round of the TVS-ITF men’s futures tennis tournament at the YMCA Sports and Games Center here on Tuesday.

Interestingly, it was the Italian who retired in the third set when the two met in the quarterfinals of the Tiruchi leg last week.

The first set started on a miserable note with Giorgio Portaluri serving as many as five double faults in his first two service games to give Ramkumar a 3-0 lead.

The Indian then took control to clinch the set 6-0 when the Italian hit a backhand long.

Portaluri fought back in the second set. There were well-fought baseline duels with the Italian making Ramkumar sweat for every point.

The break came in the sixth game when Ramkumar’s backhand found the net.

Ramkumar broke back when Giorgo double-faulted to make it 4-3.

Turning point

The turning point of the match came in the eighth game when Ramkumar failed to convert two game points.

The Italian showed his resolve to hang in and converted his fifth break point with a brilliant forehand passing shot down the line to take a 5-3 lead. He closed out the set 6-3 when Ramkumar’s backhand shot went wide.

Giorgio took the momentum with him into the third set. Ramkumar, however, committed too many unforced errors to lose serve thrice before conceding the set 5-0.

Ramkumar though returned to the court for the doubles match in the afternoon.

In a tough three-setter, he, along with Arun Prakash Rajagopalan, overcame Jannis Liniger of Switzerland and N. Vijay Sundar Prashanth 3-6, 6-4, 10-8.

In another singles match, Elwin Antony upset fifth seed Pol Toledo Bague of Spain 6-1, 6-1.

Other results (first round):

Singles: Enrique Lopez-Perez (Esp) bt Aaditya Tewari 6-3, 6-3; Rahul Robinson Manoah bt Ronit Singh Bisht 6-1, 6-1; V.M. Ranjeet bt Vijay Kannan 6-2, 6-4; N. Sriram Balaji bt Sasi Kumar Mukund 7-5, 6-2.

Jannis Liniger (Sui) bt Anvit Bendre 6-2, 6-1; Niki Kaliyanda Poonacha bt Suraj R. Prabodh 6-7, 6-4, 6-2; Chandril Sood bt Shahbaaz Khan 6-1, 6-3.

Doubles: Giorgio Portaluri (Ita) & Lucas Renard (Swe) bt Kunal Anand & Ronit Singh Bisht 6-4, 6-2.

Sergio Martos Gornes (Esp) & Pol Toledo Bague (Esp) bt Romano Frantzen (Ned) & Enrique Lopez-Perez (Esp) 3-6, 6-1, 13-11.