Cassis Open: Ramkumar Ramanathan, Sriram Balaji win doubles title

By ANI

CASSIS: Indian tennis pair Ramkumar Ramanathan and N Sriram Balaji lifted men’s doubles event at the Cassis Open Provence in France.

The third-seeded Indians edged out the second-seeded pair of Hans Hach Verdugo and Miguel Angel Reyes-Varela from Mexico 6-4, 3-6, 10-6 to win the ATP Challenger tournament on Saturday, as per Olympics.com.

Ramanathan and Balaji gained 80 ranking points each.

Balaji, 31, picked his seventh Challenger doubles title while 26-year-old Ramanathan added to his five previous doubles trophies in Challenger events.

In the title clash at the Cassis Open, the Indian pair won the evenly contested opening set by breaking the opponents in the 10th game.

However, the Mexicans came back to break the Indians twice in the second set and level the score.

Ramanathan-Balaji did better in the super tie-breaker as the opponents lost serve four times, giving the Indians the victory.

The Ramanathan-Balaji pair had earlier received a bye in the first round and a walkover in the second before defeating Ernesto Escobedo and Fernando Romboli 6-3, 6-2 in the semi-final of the hard court event.

Two other Indian pairs, Jeevan Neduncheziyan and Purav Raja and Anirudh Chandrasekar and Vignesh Peranamallur, had exited in the round of 16.

Ramkumar Ramanathan also competed in the singles event but lost in the quarter-final. He will now fly to Finland to take part in the Davis Cup, starting on September 17.