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Bengaluru Open 2020: Purav Raja-Ramkumar Ramanathan lift doubles title

Purav Raja and Ramkumar Ramanathan dominated the match from the start to the finish while recording a 6-0, 6-3 victory over the Indo-Australian pair of Paes and Matthew Ebden to lift the doubles crown of the Bengaluru Open 2020.

doubles trophy

Bengaluru, Feb 15: The much awaited doubles final, more so for the presence of the legendary Leander Paes’ final appearance in an ATP event in India, fizzled out without a roar as the all Indian pair and fourth seeds Purav Raja and Ramkumar Ramanathan dominated the match from the start to the finish while recording a 6-0, 6-3 victory over the Indo-Australian pair of Paes and Matthew Ebden to lift the doubles crown of the Bengaluru Open 2020.

In the singles semifinal, unseeded Benjamin Bonzi of France continued his giant killing spree by ousting second seed Stefano Travaglia of Italy 6-3, 6-4 to set up a title clash with fourth seed James Duckworth of Australia. Duckworth stopped another Italian Julian Ocleppo 6-3, 6-2.

Both Purav and Ramkumar served and returned with finesse, especially with the latter who served with purpose. They were also aided by their opponents’ unforced errors which helped them to blank their opponents in the first set and carried on during the second to take a 3-0 lead. Paes and Ebden did make a comeback bid but it was too late in the match as they succumbed at 3.

“It is always an honour to share the court with Leander. I am feeling sad after winning a Challenger that it had to have Leander on the losing side,” said Ramkumar.

“To win in tennis itself is tough. And winning is even tougher when you have some big guns playing. We make a good team and know the strengths and weaknesses of each other and that is what helped us today,” said the champion.

Meanwhile, the journey of Bonzi enroute to the title round is no short of a fairytale script. First he quelled the challenge of Manish Suresh Kumar in the opening round and felled 12th seed N Milojevic in the second round before sending the seventh seed and India’s No.1 Prajnesh Gunneswaran in the third round.

He also sent the third seed Yuichi Sugita in the quarterfinals before ousting second seed Stefano Travaglia to earn a berth in the final of the US $ 162,500 event.

After a good start, Bonzi lost his serve in the fifth game but immediately returned the favour. With one more break in the eighth game, Bonzi served out for the set. In the second set, Bonzi, flirting with breakpoints, finally managed one in the seventh game which was enough for him to pave the path to victory.

The other semifinal went according to the script with the fancied fourth seed Australian James Duckworth setting aside the challenge of Italian Julian Ocleppo who started with a wrong foot losing his serve.

The Australian had returned to the top 100 in singles ranking last year by winning four Challenger titles in six final appearances. Although Ocleppo did a great job of hitting some good returns, he was not able to achieve a break. On the contrary, in trying hard, he lost his serve and the set in the ninth game. The second set followed a similar pattern where Duckworth broke Ocleppo’s serve in the second and eight games to wrest the match.


Results:

Doubles finals:

[4] Purav Raja (IND) / Ramkumar Ramanathan (IND) bt Matthew Ebden (AUS) / Leander Paes 6-0, 6-3


Men’s Singles Semifinals:

[4] James Duckworth (AUS) bt Julian Ocleppo (ITA) 6-3, 6-2

Benjamin Bonzi (FRA) Vs. [2] Stefano Travaglia (ITA) 6-3, 6-4

Singles final line-up (2 p.m.):

[4] James Duckworth (AUS) Vs. Benjamin Bonzi (FRA)

Source: Press Release

Story first published: Saturday, February 15, 2020, 22:44 [IST]
Other articles published on Feb 15, 2020