Marbella Challengers | Ramkumar Ramanathan, Sumit Nagal to face each other in second round
Ramkumar Ramanathan reached the second round of the Marbella Masters after defeating Italy’s Alessandro Giannessi 6-4, 3-6, 6-3 where he will face compatriot Sumit Nagal. Nagal, however, registered a tricky 6-4, 6-1 straight-set victory against Marcel Granollers in the first round.
After exchanging serves in the first two games, Ramanathan took an early 2-1 lead by getting a break point in the third game itself. The Indian ace was persistent with the lead till the very end of the first set, which he eventually sealed 6-4 to gain an upper hand over the Italian opponent.
However, the 161 ATP ranked player was in no mood to give up so easily and showed a terrific comeback in the second game. Giannessi managed to break Ramanathan in the fourth game to take a two-point lead at 3-1. Though Ramanathan managed to break his opponent in the very next game itself, reducing the deficit to one, he failed to save his break-point twice in the sixth game. Giannessi wasn't letting this chance slip and he won the second set 6-3 quite comfortably.
The third set was expectantly seeing a neck-to-neck competition with both players dominating from serves until Ramanathan finally managed to break his opponent in the sixth game to lead 4-2. It was just a matter of time from there and Ramanathan kept his stronghold until the very end to win deciding set 6-3.
23-year-old
After the narrow win in the first set, Nagal needed to hold his lead and he did that in brilliant fashion by breaking Granollers twice to lead 4-0. Though the Spaniard fought back by winning the break-point in the fifth game, it was too late.
