Ramkumar Ramanathan defeated Sumit Nagal in the KPIT MSLTA Challenger Tennis Tournament on Friday to advance to the semi-finals.
Ramkumar had dominated Nagal in the previous six meetings and the result was no different when these two players were face-to-face for the first time this year in the Challenger level tournament with the 25-year-old Ramkumar winning the match by 6-4, 7-6.
The road to the final will, however, not at be easy for the sixth seed Ramkumar as he will have to overcome the challenge of second seed James Duckworth to reach the final.
Duckworth defeated another Indian player Sasikumar Mukund by 7-5, 4-6, 7-5.
After the game against Nagal, Ramkumar said that playing Nagal is always tough, but he tried to keep it simple and backed his strengths. He further added that he waited for Nagal to commit mistakes, rather than trying anything extravagant.
Sumit Nagal, on the other hand, was gutted, but he said he was overall in a happy space taking the entire season into consideration which was actually a successful one for him.
The 22-year old added that he was a little cautious about his fitness in this tournament. According to Nagal, he did not want to put pressure on his body as he was keen to start the next season injury free.
Nagal was in the news after he became 1st Indian to take a set off Roger Federer during the first round of the US Open.
As far as Ramkumar is concerned, after his exploits in singles, he performed brilliantly in the doubles category as well. Along with his partner Purav Raja, Ramkumar defeated Aziz Dougaz of Tunisia and Calvin Hemri of France by 6-3, 6-4 in the quarter-finals.
The top seeded Indian pair will now face Braden Klein of Britain and N Vijay Sundar Prashant of India in the semi-finals.
