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India's Ramkumar reaches first-ever ATP World Tour semifinal

Somdev Devvarman was the last Indian singles player to reach this far in an ATP Tour event.

Ramkumar Ramanathan

Bengaluru, July 20: India's Ramkumar Ramanathan reached his first-ever ATP World Tour semifinal with a 7-5, 6-2 win over Canada's Vasek Pospisil in the quarterfinals of the Hall of Fame Open grass-court tennis tournament in Newport.

For a place in his first ATP final, he will talke on homeboy Tim Smyczek who beat compatriot Jason Jung 6-1, 5-7, 6-4.

The 161-ranked Indian prevailed in one hour and 18 minutes. A day earlier, he had beaten eighth seeded American Denis Kudla 4-6, 6-3, 6-6.

Ramkumar has been making good progress on the ATP circuit. Last year, he had scored an upset win over then world No. 8 Dominic Thiem and given a scare to Australian Open semi-finalist Marcos Baghdatis at the Antalya Open.

The 23-year-old sent down five aces and converted the three break points that came his way.

The Chennai-born player was 1-2 this year in ATP events until this week, and was on a five-match losing streak, including the qualifiers at Wimbledon.

But at the ATP World Tour 250 Series event in, Rhode Island, Ramkumar turned it around. He ousted Dominican Victor Burgos 6-4, 6-1 in his opener and dispatched Kudla in the second round to set up the clash with the Canadian, who had beaten him in the Australian Open qualifiers earlier this year.

Saturday's semifinals will be staged around the International Tennis Hall of Fame induction ceremony for Czech Helena Sukova and Germany's Michael Stich.

Somdev Devvarman was the last Indian singles player to reach this far in an ATP Tour event.

Meanwhile, it was curtains for veteran Leander Paes as he bowed out in the doubles quarterfinal.

Paes, who was playing his first match since creating the Davis Cup world record in February for most number of wins in doubles, and his American partner Jamie Cerretani suffered a 3-6 6-7 (3) loss to giant-killers Jeevan Nedunchezhiyan and Austin Crajicek in the doubles quarterfinals.

Jeevan and Austin, who had toppled top seeds Nicholas Monroe and John-Patrick Smith in the first round, will face fourth seeds Spain's Marcelo Arevalo and Mexico's Miguel Angel Reyes-Varela in the semifinals.

In-form Divij Sharan and his partner Jackson Withrow, seeded second, defeated Australia's Matthew Ebden and Ukraine's Sergiy Stakhovsky 7-6 (4) 6-3 to set up a semifinal clash with New Zealand's Artem Sitak and Israel's Janathan Erlich.

Artem and Janathan saw off third seeds India's Purav Raja and British Ken Skupski 4-6 6-3 10-8 in a thrilling quarterfinal contest.

(With inputs from PTI and other Agencies)

Story first published: Friday, July 20, 2018, 16:11 [IST]
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