Indian tennis round-up | Saketh Myneni beats top-seed Mikhail Youzhny; Ankita Raina to face Rutuja Bhosale

30-year old Saketh Myneni, who had won nine ITF and two ATP Challenger singles titles, has probably pulled off one of the biggest wins of his career in the form of Russian tennis ace, Mikhail Youzhny. Myneni was at his very best as he downed a former Top-10 player by a score of 3-6, 6-4, 6-3 in the second round of the Astana Challenger today. Myneni fought back from being a set down to beat top seed Youzhny in the final set of the match.

Fellow countryman, Ramkumar Ramanathan also made a winning start to the Hall of Fame Tennis Championships at Newport, Rhode Island. Ramanathan ran off with a 6-4, 6-1 victory against Dominican Republic’s Victor Estrella Borgos in the first round that set up a meeting with eighth seed Denis Kudla in round two.

Indian men’s doubles pair of Purav Raja and Divij Sharan also won their respective doubles matches. Purav and partner Ken Skupski of England defeated Ruben Bemelmans of Belgium and Denis Kudla of the USA 7-5, 6-4. Meanwhile, Divij and Jackson Withrow of the USA beat Martin Redlicki and Evan Zhu 6-3, 6-3 in the first round of the tournament.

Amongst the women, Ankita Raina beat local lass Chompoothip Jundakate 4-6, 6-2, 6-2 as she made her way to the second round of the ITF Futures tournament in Thailand. She will face off against compatriot Rutuja Bhosale in the next round, who had defeated Bunyawi Thamchaiwat of Thailand 6-2, 6-2 in the opening round of the tournament.