N Balaji/A Begemann stun top seeded pair of Ram/Krajicek to enter ATP Houston 250 quarters

Much to the delight of Indian fans, N Sriram Balaji stormed into the men’s doubles quarter-finals at the ATP 2024 U.S. Men’s Clay Court Championship in Houston on Wednesday.

The pair of N Sriram Balaji and Andre Begemann clinched a 3-6, 7-6(5), 10-6 upset win over top seeds Rajeev Ram of the USA and Austin Krajicek in their first-round fixture. For the unversed, Rajeev Ram is a three-time reigning US Open champion, while partnering him was Austin Krajicek, who is currently world number four in the ATP doubles rankings.

It is worth mentioning that three Indian doubles pairs have managed to clinch their opening-round wins at the ongoing ATP 250 event in Houston.

Balaji and Begemann, though, didn’t make an ideal start to the match as they lost the first set 3-6. Both Balaji and Begemann couldn’t hold onto their final serving games, which led to their downfall in the first set.

Balaji-Begemann, however, made a fighting comeback as the game went down to the wire. The fans could feel the nerves in the second set as no one lost any game throughout the set. It, eventually, went into the tie-breaker, with the Indo-German pair winning the set.

The next set went into the super tie-breaker, with Balaji-Begemann winning it 10-6, eventually.

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Balaji-Begemann set to take on Jeevan Nedunchezhiyan and Arjun Kadhe in the next round

The Indo-German duo will now lock horns with the all-Indian pair of Jeevan Nedunchezhiyan and Arjun Kadhe in the next round.

Jeevan Nedunchezhiyan and Arjun Kadhe are coming into this match on the back of a 6-4, 6-2 first-round win over Marcus Daniell-Luis David Martínez.

Meanwhile, Vijay Sundar Prashanth and Anirudh Chandrasekar beat former top-10 singles players Frances Tiafoe and Michael Mmoh in the Round of 16. However, the duo couldn’t continue the winning momentum and lost to fourth seeds Max Purcell and Jordan Thompson in the quarter-finals.