Indian tennis round-up: Rohan Bopanna advances in Monte Carlo, Indian challenge ends in Nanchang

Rohan Bopanna kept the Indian flag flying high at the Monte Carlo Masters to enter the quarter-finals but Ramkumar Ramanathan and Prajnesh Gunneswaran did not have the same good fortunes at the Nanchang Challenger in China as they crashed out in the quarter-finals on Friday.

Bopanna and Edouard Roger-Vasselin did not have it easy in their second round clash with the seventh seeds and two-time Grand Slam champions Jamie Murray and Bruno Soares on Thursday. The unseeded Indo-French duo had to work hard to come back from a set down and then saved three match points for a 3-6, 6-4, 11-9 win in 1 hour 22 minutes.

The victors produced four aces and won 85% of their first serves. They converted the only break point that they earned in the second set and conceded a single break of serve in the opener.

The match tie-break proved to be pretty tough for them and they trailed for most part of it. They lagged behind at 2-5 and then at 3-8 and then faced three match points at 6-9 from where they won five points in a row to snatch the win.

Up next for Bopanna and Roger-Vasselin is the Colombian pair of Robert Farah and Juan Sebastian Cabal, who reached the Australian Open final this year.

Indian campaign ends in Challenger events

At the Nanchang Challenger, fourth seed and World No. 116 Ramkumar Ramanathan went down 2-6, 5-7 to the 242nd ranked Alexandr Nedovyesov. The Kazakh has been a former World No. 72 and broke the Indian thrice to get the win in 1 hour 29 minutes.

India’s Davis Cup hero Prajnesh Gunneswaran was beaten 4-6, 3-6 by the third seeded Quentin Halys.

At the Sarasota Challenger in the USA, Jeevan Nedunchezhiyan and Purav Raja too could not live up to their fourth seeding and succumbed to a 5-7, 2-6 defeat to Luke Bambridge and Jonny O’Mara in the quarter-finals on Thursday.