Savannah Challenger: Jeevan Nedunchezhiyan seeks second title of the season

Indian tennis doubles ace Jeevan Nedunchezhiyan will aim for his second title of the 2018 season at the $75, 000 Savannah Challenger in Georgia, USA on Sunday. The southpaw, who is seeded third at this tournament alongside Spain’s Enrique Lopez Perez, will take on the unseeded pair of Luke Bambridge and Akira Santillan in the summit clash.

The Indo-Spanish combine was impeccable in their semi-final and needed just 57 minutes to brush off the challenge of Hunter Johnson and Yates Johnson 6-4, 6-2. The third seeds converted four out of their 10 break points and conceded just a solitary service break.

That was their only win in straight sets in what has been a tough campaign at this event. Nedunchezhiyan and Lopez Perez began the week with a hard-fought 3-6, 6-3, 10-4 win over the American duo of Nick Chappell and Miles Seemann.

They had to fight their way out in yet another comeback win in the quarter-final, where they prevailed over Robert Galloway and Andreas Siljestrom 2-6, 6-4, 10-5.

This is Nedunchezhiyan’s second ATP Challenger final in as many weeks. Last week, he and Lopez Perez finished as runners-up at the Tallahassee Challenger.

This is the Indian’s fourth final of the year at this level. He had earlier triumphed in Dallas, where he partnered Christopher Rungkat.

Ramanathan goes down in Madrid

At the Madrid Masters, Ramkumar Ramanathan failed to cross the first hurdle in qualifying as he went down 4-6, 3-6 to the fourth seeded Pierre-Hugues Herbert. He was the only Indian taking part in singles at this tournament.

Sharan’s run ends in Istanbul semis

At the ATP 250 event in Istanbul, Divij Sharan’s run came to an end in the semi-finals. Sharan and Marcin Matkowski were the second seeds at this tournament but they were shown the door 4-6, 6-2, 4-10 by the unseeded combine of Dominic Inglot and Robert Lindstedt.