It was a bittersweet day for Indian tennis fans. After Sumit Nagal bowed out of the semifinal in straight sets, Ramkumar Ramanathan and Saketh Myneni clinched their third doubles title together. With these two results, the Indian challenge at the Challenger 100 event has come to a successful end.
Sumit Nagal, who was entering the match against seventh seed Stefano Napolitano on an 8-match win streak, put up a lackluster display to bow out in straight sets (7-6, 6-4). Having been up 4-1 in the first set, the 26-year-old failed to grab another break and went 5-1 up, and from then on, he lost the set in the tiebreaker. Having been playing two straight weeks, the second seed looked a little bit physically spent and crashed out to the Bengaluru Open 2024.
Ramkumar Ramanathan and Saketh Myneni also played a straight-set match, but unlike Sumti Nagal, they emerged victorious. Facing the French duo of Constantin Bittoun Kouzmine and Maxime Janvier, the Indian wildcards broke the opponent once in each set to take the title 6-3, 6-4.
The duo decided to play together at the start of the year and won their second successive Challenger title after winning the Chennai Challenger last week.
Sumit Nagal will now likely be in action at the Indian Wells Masters in early March, while Ramanathan and Myneni will now play the Pune Challenger next week.
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