Indian tennis: Sumit Nagal, Prajnesh advance; Ramkumar exits at ATP Challenger events

It was a mixed day for India’s singles players on the ATP Challenger Tour as Prajnesh Gunneswaran and Sumit Nagal notched strong wins while Ramkumar Ramanathan crashed out.

Playing his second straight Challenger after the landmark US Open debut, Sumit Nagal reached the third round in Banja Luka, Bosnia. The sixth seeded Indian beat Matija Pecotic 6-1,6-1 after beating Ivan Nedelko 6-3,7-6(3) in his opener.

Before this, he had lost in the first round of the Genoa Challenger right after the Grand Slam.

At the ATP Challenger in Shanghai, top seed Prajnesh Gunneswaran beat Goncalo Oliveira 6-3, 6-4 to reach the quarter-final. It was a smoother performance after the 6-4, 7-6(3) win over James Ward in the first round. He will play eighth seed Hiroki Moriya for a place in the final.

In the doubles, second seeds Divij Sharan and Saketh Myneni advanced to the semi-finals with a 7-6(2), 6-3 win over Toshihide Matsui and John Paul Fruttero.

Earlier, Sasi Kumar Mukund, Arjun Kadhe and Saketh Myneni had lost in the singles while the doubles pair of Sriram Balaji and Vishnu Vardhan as well as Arjun Kadhe and Vijay Sundar Prashanth had also bowed out.

Elsewhere, Ramkumar Ramanathan went down in the third round of the Challenger Istanbul, Turkey. The Indian eighth seed lost 3-6, 5-7 to Spanish 12th seed Nicola Kuhn in singles.

He is still alive in the doubles after reaching quarter-finals with Hugo Grenier, beating Arda Azkara and Burak Bilgin 6-4, 6-2 in the first-round match.

In the doubles, India’s Purav Raja and Rameez Junaid of Australia, seeded second, beat former world No 1 Nenad Zimonjic and Ruben Belelmans 6-4, 6-4 in the doubles pre-quarterfinals.

Among the women, Ankita Raina, who had lost in the first round of the singles, reached the doubles quarter-final at the WTA Jiangxi Open. The India No 1 and her partner Eden Silva beat Peangtarn Plipuech and Fangying Xun 6-3, 6-3.