Prajnesh Gunneswaran played like a true professional and a champion. Swept aside in the opening set, the No. 4 seed knocked out top seed Albot Radu of Moldova in a match that lasted two hours in the second semifinal of the $50,000 MSLTA KPIT Challenger tennis tournament at the Balewadi sports complex on Friday.
Prajnesh, who won 1-6, 6-4, 6-4, held his first service game but was made to think hard. He, however, provided a brilliant twist to the tale.
The Indian took the lead in the second set and did not allow the advantage slip; he was in some pressure serving at 4-3 in the third, but rallied from a 15-40 deficit to hold the upper hand.
An unforced error by Radu eventually saw the Indian home.
Earlier, Elias Ymer, Sweden’s No. 1 player of Ethiopian descent, achieved a personal best of reaching two finals of the last three ATP Challenger events he has taken part in, when he got the better of Canada’s Brayden Schnur 6-3, 3-6, 6-3 in the last four.
The results (semifinals): Elias Ymer (Swe) bt Brayden Schnur (Can) 6-3, 3-6, 6-3; Prajnesh Gunneswaran bt Albot Radu (Mdu) 1-6, 6-4, 6-4. Doubles: Ramkumar Ramanathan & N. Vijay Sundar Prashanth bt Andrej Martin (Slo) & Hans Podlipnik-Castillo (Chi) 7-6(7), 6-0; Tsung Hua Yang & Chang Peng Hsieh (Chn) bt Max Purcell & Luke Saville (Aus) 6-7(4), 6-3, 10-6.