Ramkumar Ramanathan progresses to final qualifying round

Unseeded Ramkumar Ramanathan pulled off an upset against the top seeded Elias Ymer of Sweden to enter the final round qualifying of the Maha Open 2025 tennis tournament in Pune on Sunday.

The 30-year-old Ramkumar extracted his revenge for his Davis Cup loss against the top seeded Elias Ymer, winning 5-7,6-1,6-4 in a match that lasted for 1 hour and 52 minutes at the Mhalunge Balewadi Tennis Stadium.

Ymer, who had got past Ramanathan in the Davis Cup between India and Sweden, played solidly to wrap up the first set, but Ramkumar progressed well with his serve and volley game, attacking the 28-year-old Ymer to win the second set.

The Indian tennis player couldn't break Ymer in the third game, but did manage to get a break in the fifth game to win the match. Ramkumar, currently ranked 403, served nine aces in the match to move into the final round of qualifying of the ATP Challenger tennis tournament.

In the matches featuring other Indians, sixth-seeded Ilia Simakin took 1 hour 15 minutes to get past India's No. 2 ranked player Mukund Sasikumar winning 6-4, 6-3 to also advance to the final round of qualifying.

Twelfth-seeded Matthew Dellavedova of Australia proved too experienced for 16-year-old wildcard Arnav Vijay Paparkar winning 6-2, 6-3. Paparkar showed glimpses of his quality but could not get past the experienced Australian.

Former winner of the Maha Open ATP Tour and currently ranked 35 in the world, Jiri Vesely of Czechia, who is making a comeback, proved strong for local wildcard Siddhant Banthia winning 6-2, 6-3.

Eleventh-seeded South African Kris Van Wyk was given a fight by wildcard entrant Nitin Kumar Sinha, eventually winning 7-5, 7-5, while fourth-seeded Blake Ellis of Australia quelled a first set challenge before accounting for another Indian wildcard Sidharth Rawat 7-5 ,6-2.

In the other two upsets of the day Petr Bar Biryukov upset second-seeded Oleksandr Ovcharenko of Ukraine 6-3, 7-6(6), while Japanese Hiroki Moriya ousted fifth-seeded Jacopo Berrettini of Italy 7-5, 6-3.

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