Sixth seeded Ramkumar Ramanathan scored an upset win over third seeded Sumit Nagal in an exciting all India Contest and also become the lone Indian to enter the semifinals at the sixth edition of the KPIT MSLTA Challenger a Challenger 80 series event which is under way at the MSLTA School of tennis courts at the Mhalunge Balewadi Sports Complex

In their first meeting this year at the Challenger level 25 year old from Chennai Ramkumar truimphed 6-4,7-6(5) over Indian No 2. Sumit Nagal in a 1 hour 37 minute thriller .

In the first set Both players held serves till 4-4 , Ramkumar broke Nagal in the 10th game to take the first set 6-4. In the second set , Sumit was broken in the 6th game but broke back Ramkumar in the 7th game , Sumit then held his eighth game and again broke Ramkumar to go up 5-4.

In the 10th game , Ramkumar played some classic tennis to break Sumit on the third breakpoint and level scores at 5-5 . Both Ramkumar and Sumit held serves in the next two games to level scores at 6-6 and force a tiebreak.

In the tiebtreak Sumit raced off to a 3-0 lead , before Ram came back to level scores at 3-3 , at 5-4 in the tiebreak Ram played good point at 5-4 to go up 6-4 , but Nagal aced to reduce the margin to 6-5 , Ram closed the match on the second Matchpoint and regsitered a big win over inform Nagal.

Ram will now take on winner of the match between second seeded James Duckworth who went through close moments to stop Another Indian and eighth Sasikumar Mukund.7-5,4-6,7-5 in a 2 hour 16 minute battle.

Second seeded Duckworth took the first set 7-5, in the second set Duckworth led 4-2 and looked like sealing the match , but the 22 year Chennai lad ranked 250 in the workld , who will make his debut in the Indian Davis Cup team against Pakistan came back strongly to level scores to 4-4 , he broke Duckworth ranked 139 higher than him in the 9th game and then held to a tenacious 10th game to win the set and level scores

In a well contested third set both players matched each other , Mukund Missed opportunity to break Duckworth in the 7th game of the third set, squandering a 30-0 lead and putting a volley out and go down 3-4 . Next game Mukund held to level 4-4 , both players held the 9th and 10th games to level 5-5 ,

Mukund had 4 breakpoints in the 11th game on Duckworth’s serve but could not close , in the 12th game Duckworth broke Mukund who served tentatively for the first time in the entire match to win the match and make it to the semifinals, Mukund had to be content with 15 ATP points and $1480 for his efforts In the top half seventh seeded Roberto Ortega-Olmedo of Spain took the first set 7-6(7) against slayer of top seeded Prajnesh Gunneswaran Tim. Van Rijthoven of Netherlands , the Dutch player retired after the first set giving Olmedo a passage to the semifinals

In the semifinals Olmedo will take on Pune regular andf fifth seeded Jay Clarke of Great Britian who squandered a 5-3 lead in the third set against fourth seeded Steven Diez of Canada, Clarke manage to get past the Canadian 6-4,3-6,7-6(3) in a heavy weather match to make it to the last four in a match lasting 2 hours and 35 minutes.

The Indian dominance in the doubles section was evident with top seeds Purav Raja and Ramkumar Ramanathan registering a dominant 6-3,6-4 win over Tunisia’s Aziz Dougaz and Frenchman Calvin Hemery . In the semifinals the Indian pair will take on fourth seeded Brydan. Klein of Great Britian and N Vijay Sundar Prashanth of India who easily disposed off Indian pair of Niki Poonacha and Annirudh Chandrasekar 6-2,6-3 The Semifinals will be played 1pm onwards , Entry is free

Following are the Results ( Quarterfinals)

[7] Roberto Ortega-Olmedo (ESP) bt [14] Tim. Van Rijthoven (NED ) 7-6(7) Retd

(5) Jay Clarke (Gbr) bt [4] Steven Diez (CAN) 6-4,3-6,7-6(3)

[6] Ramkumar . Ramanathan (IND) bt [3] Sumit Nagal (IND) 6-4, 7-6(5)

(2) James Duckworth (Aus ) bt [8] Sasikumar Mukund (IND) 7-5,4-6,7-5

Doubles Quarterfinals

(1) Purav Raja / Ramkumar Ramanathan (Ind) bt Aziz Dougaz (Tun)/ Calvin Hemery (Fra) 6-3,6-4

4] Brydan. Klein (GBR) / N Vijay Sundar Prashanth (IND) bt Niki Poonacha / Annirudh Chandrasekar 6-2,6-3