Ramkumar Enters Semi-finals of ATP Hall of Fame Open, Paes Knocked Out
India’s Ramkumar Ramanathan entered the semi-final at the Hall of Fame Open in Newport on Thursday to make it his first entry into the last four on the ATP World Tour. The world No. 161 beat Canada’s Vasek Pospisil 7-5, 6-2. Veteran Indian star Leander Paes, who missed the entire clay and the grass court season, made a winning return to competitive tennis with American partner Jamie Cerretani.
New Delhi: India’s Ramkumar Ramanathan entered the semi-final at the Hall of Fame Open in Newport on Thursday to make it his first entry into the last four on the ATP World Tour. The world No. 161 beat Canada’s Vasek Pospisil 7-5, 6-2.
Veteran Indian star Leander Paes, who missed the entire clay and the grass court season, made a winning return to competitive tennis with American partner Jamie Cerretani.
Paes, playing his first match since creating the Davis Cup world record in February for most number of wins in doubles, and Cerretani, defeated Luke Bambridge and Jonny O'Mara 6-4, 6-3 in their opening round of the USD 623,710 hard court event.
Paes 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.