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Indian tennis ace Ramkumar Ramanathan’s superb show at the recently-concluded Hall of Fame Open in Newport, USA has helped him climb up 46 places to a career-best ranking of 115th in the new ATP World Rankings released on Monday, July 23, 2018. Ramanathan made it to the final of the ATP 250 grasscourt event, losing to Steve Johnson in three sets.
It made him the first Indian to reach a final on the ATP World Tour since Somdev Devvarman finished runner-up to the 2018 Wimbledon finalist Kevin Anderson at the SA Tennis Open in 2011. This was also the first time in 10 years that an Indian appeared in the final of the Hall of Fame Open since Prakash Amritraj in 2008.
The 23-year-old Ramanathan had a golden opportunity to emulate Leander Paes’ feat of winning an ATP title, which the tennis icon did at the same venue in 1998. Even though the youngster levelled the match by winning the second set, the third seeded Johnson proved too strong in the end and completed a 7-5, 3-6, 6-2 win in 2 hours.
Among the other Indians, Yuki Bhambri continues to be the top-ranked singles player from the country. He slipped a solitary rung to 86th. Prajnesh Gunneswaran also dropped a couple of places to 186th, while Sumit Nagal rose to 269th.
Nedunchezhiyan rise to career-best 87th
In doubles, Rohan Bopanna stays put at the 27th position. Divij Sharan, Leander Paes and Purav Raja dropped to 38th, 80th and 83rd respectively.
Sharan made it to the semi-finals at Newport last week, which was his seventh semi-final at an ATP 250 tournament this year.
While Jeevan Nedunchezhiyan shot up to a career-high 87th after reaching the semi-finals at Newport, there were contrasting fortunes for doubles partners, N Sriram Balaji and Vishnu Vardhan. Balaji soared three spots to 96th, but Vardhan plummeted six spots to 98th.
