Ramkumar Ramanathan loses Challenger second round

Ramkumar Ramanathan was beaten 6-1, 7-6(1) by fifth seed Henri Laaksonen of Switzerland in the pre-quarterfinal of the USD 100,000 Challenger tennis tournament in San Francisco.

Ramkumar who did not drop serve against New Zealand in the Davis Cup last week, had earlier beaten wild card entrant Marcos Giron of the US in three sets.

Ramkumar Ramanathan was beaten 6-1, 7-6(1) by fifth seed Henri Laaksonen of Switzerland in the pre-quarterfinal of the USD 100,000 Challenger tennis tournament in San Francisco.

Ramkumar who did not drop serve while winning two singles rubbers against New Zealand in the Davis Cup last week, had earlier beaten wild card entrant Marcos Giron of the US in three sets. Purav Raja and Divij Sharan, the doubles finalists at the Chennai Open, made the semifinal of the 540,210 Euros ATP event in France.

However, Jeevan Nedunchezhiyan, who had won the Chennai Open with Rohan Bopanna, went down fighting in partnership with Sergio Galdos of Peru, in two tie-break sets to Nicholas Monroe of the US and Artem Sitak of New Zealand in the ATP event in Ecuador. Jeevan and partner shared USD 2,490 and there was no ATP point for losing first round.

The results:

540,310 Euros ATP event, Montpellier, France:

Doubles (quarterfinal): Purav Raja & Divij Sharan bt Malek Jaziri (Tun) & Albano Olivetti (Fra) 6-4, 6-2; Pre-quarterfinal: Purav Raja & Divij Sharan w.o. Dustin Brown (Ger) & Karen Khachanov (Rus).

USD 540,000 ATP event, Quito, Ecuador:

Doubles (pre-quarterfinal): Nicholas Monroe (US) & Artem Sitak (Nzl) bt Sergio Galdos (Per) & Jeevan Nedunchezhiyan 7-6(5), 7-6(8).

USD 100,000 Challenger men, San Francisco, US

Singles (pre-quarterfinal): Henri Laaksonen (Sui) bt Ramkumar Ramanathan 6-1, 7-6(1); First round: Ramkumar Ramanathan bt Marcos Giron (US) 2-6, 6-4, 6-4.

USD 15,000 ITF men, Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt

Doubles (quarterfinal): Jonas Luetjen (Ger) & Nicolaas Scholtz (RSA) bt Chandril Sood & Lakshit Sood 7-6(4), 6-4; pre-quarterfinal: Chandril Sood & Lakshit Sood bt Frederico Ferreira Silva (Por) & Zdenek Kolar (Cze) 6-4, 6-2.

USD15,000 ITF men, Jakarta, Indonesia

Singles (quarterfinal): Karunuday Singh w.o. Enzo Couacaud (Fra); Pre-quarterfinal: Karunuday Singh bt Soichiro Moritani (Jpn) 6-4, 6-3.

Doubles (quarterfinals): Kelsey stevvenson (Can) & Karunuday Singh bt Christian Alvin Edison & Arief Rahman (Ina) 6-3, 7-6(4).