Bordeaux Challenger: Divij-Raja duo wins first title of 2017

The third seeded Indians defeated fourth seeds Santiago Gonzalez and Artem Sitak 6-4, 6-4 in the title clash.

Published : May 21, 2017 22:25 IST , Bordeaux (France)

Purav Raja and Divij Sharan all the four break points they faced in the match.
Purav Raja and Divij Sharan all the four break points they faced in the match.
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Purav Raja and Divij Sharan all the four break points they faced in the match.

Divij Sharan and Purav Raja won the Bordeaux Challenger — their first clay-court title — with a straight sets win over Santiago Gonzalez and Artem Sitak here on Sunday.

The third seeded Indians defeated the fourth seeded Mexican-Kiwi duo 6-4, 6-4 in 67 minutes.

Divij and Raja saved all the four break points they faced in the match and broke their rivals once in each set.

“It was a pretty tough field as we beat players like (Thanasi) Kokkinakis and (Leander) Paes to win the title. It is our first title on clay and it’s encouraging to get this win going into the French Open,” Divij told PTI.

This year Divij and Raja have mostly played on the ATP World Tour and it was only their fourth tournament on the Challenger Tour.

“It was not a deliberate choice. It was the obvious choice for us to play a Challenger this week as the only Tour event this week is ATP 1000 in Rome and our rankings was not good enough to make the cut there.

“Our goal is to play the highest level tournaments because we won’t move up in rankings by playing lower level tournaments. Next week we are playing Leon, Mexico and then the French Open,” Divij said.

Reaching the final of the ATP Chennai Open has been their best show so far.

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