Ramkumar in final

Ramkumar Ramanathan reached his maiden final of the ITF circuit after registering a hard-fought win in the semifinals of the $10,000 ITF Dharwad Open at the DDTA courts here on Friday.

Ramkumar overcame German qualifier Torsten Wietsoka 7-6 (7-3), 7-5 to set up a meeting with second seed Sanam Singh, who outplayed Ranjeet Virali Murugesan 6-1, 6-0 in the other semifinals. Ramkumar kept his cool under pressure and matched his rival in every aspect of the game.

The first set went with serve till 6-all, though Wietoska faced break points in the ninth and 11th games, but the German managed to salvage them.
In the tie-breaker, Ramkumar took a 4-1 lead and before winning 7-3. In the second set, Ramkumar went ahead at 6-5. Indian kept the pressure on Wietoska, who dropped his serve in the 12th game to hand Ramkumar the match.

Results (semifinals): 2-Sanam singh bt Ranjeet Virali Murugesan 6-1, 6-0; Ramkumar Ramanathan bt Torsten Wietoska (Ger) 7-6(3), 7-5. Doubles (final): Michael Shabaz/ Amrit Narasimhan (US) bt Ajai Selvaraj/ Ashwin Vijayaraghavan 6-4, 3-6, 10-7.