Bengaluru, Feb 13:
Wild card Ramkumar Ramanathan fought back from a set down to pack off Frenchman Maxime Janvier 6-7 (4-7), 7-5, 6-4 to advance to the second round of the DafaNews Bengaluru Open 2024 at the KSLTA Tennis Stadium here on Monday.
The 29-year-old Indian kept his nerves despite his serve being put under pressure in the opening two sets by his higher-ranked opponent to pull off a sensational victory in two hours and26 minutes to give the home fans a lot to cheer.
The opening set was a neck-and-neck encore with Janvier relying on his first serve percentage to put pressure on the Indian and bagged the first set through a tiebreaker.
Ramkumar was again under pressure in the second set and managed to save four break points and then broke Janvier in the 11th game before wrapping up the next set to force a decider.
With the momentum in his favour, Ramkumar broke Janvier early in the third set and then held on to his service games to wrap up the match. The Indian star will now face the winner of the match between top seed Luca Nardi of Italy and Lucky Loser Dan Added of France.
Also biting the dust on the opening day of the main draw was Croatian third seed Duje Ajdukovic, who went down against Tunisia’s Moez Echargui 6-2, 6-4 in an hour and 30 minutes.
The ATP Challenger event, which kickstarted February 12 to 19, is being organised by the Karnataka State Lawn Tennis Association (KSLTA).
Results Main draw: Ramkumar Ramanathan (Ind) bt Maxime Janvier (Fra) 6-7 (4-7), 7-5, 6-4; Moez Echargui (Tun) bt 3-Duje Ajdukovic (Cro) 6-2, 6-4; Gauthier Onclin (Bel) bt Giovanni Fonio (Ita) 6-4, 1-6, 7-6 (5) Qualifying: 1-Bernand Tomic bt Jonas Forejtek 6-4, 6-2; 3-Chun-Hsin Tseng bt Yun Seong Chung 7-5, 4-6, 6-2.
