Vishnu Vardhan won his second ATP Challenger title of the year in Kazakhstan. (File)
Vishnu Vardhan won his second ATP Challenger title while partnering with Japan’s Toshihide Matsui in the President’s Cup in Astana, Kazakhstan. They beat their Russian opponents Evgeny Karlovskiy and Evgeny Tyurnev 7-6(3) 6-7(5) 10-7 in a tight contest. Vardhan and Matsui saved three of four breakpoints they faced in the final which lasted an hour and 44 minutes. The win is Vishnu’s biggest title triumph of his career.
Vardhan had won a title in Fergana, Uzbekistan last month with N Sriram Balaji and had finished second best in Samarkand with Prajnesh Gunneswaran. Vardhan, ranked 179th, has already won six ITF Futures doubles titles this season.
“It has been an incredible week, it is the biggest title so far of my career after a bad injury lay-off in 2013 and 2014. I am really happy to be back at this level,” Vardhan
said to PTI. “Last week, me and Matsui lost in the first round of an ITF event, having six match points. But we kept our head high and worked together for a fortnight,” he added.
Vardhan thanked former national champion Ashutosh Singh, now a coach, for helping him with his game. “Ashutosh helped me, taking his time out and pushing me when I was in Delhi in between my tournaments which kept me motivated,” he said adding that his Hyderabad-based coach CV Nagraj and trainer Latheef have also played a crucial role in his progress.
As far as other Indian players are concerned, four of them crashed out of their respective contests. Leander Paes and Australia’s Sam Groth, playing together at the Tennis Hall of Fame Championship, crashed out in the semi-finals. They lost 6-4, 6-7(6), 9-11 to Pakistan’s Aisam ul-haq Qureshi and America’s Rajeev Ram. Losing at the quarterfinals in Newport were Divij Sharan and Purav Raja. They lost 6-7 (5), 6-7 (4) to the Aussie pairing of Matt Reid and John-Patrick Smith.
In singles, Yuki Bhambri went down fighting in the quarterfinals of Gatineau Challenger in Canada. He suffered a 3-6, 6-4, 4-6 defeat to America’s Alexander Sarkissian.
