Ramkumar, Vardhan enter Mysuru Open final

Top seed Ramkumar Ramanathan and Vishnu Vardhan entered the final of the ITF Mysuru Open tennis tournament with their respective opponents conceding their matches owing to injuries here on Friday.

Ramkumar led third-seed Ranjeet Virali-Murugesan 6-7(4), 6-4, 4-2 when the latter threw in the towel after aggravating an old knee injury. In the other semi-final, eighth-seed Vishnu was ahead 7-6(2), 2-0 against No.2 Karunuday Singh, who twisted his ankle in the second set, forcing him to retire.

Meanwhile, second seeds Mohit Mayur Jayapakash and Vinayak Sharma Kaza had little trouble in defeating the unseeded pair of Bhavesh Gour and Sidarth Rawat 6-4, 6-2 to annex the doubles title.

Former Davis Cupper Virali-Murugesan gave Ramkumar a run for his money initially as the duo traded breaks to eventually force the tie-breaker. Virali-Murugesan took four points in a row to move from 3-3 to 7-3 for the first set.

However, Ramkumar recovered well to take the second set on the back of a service break to push the match into the decider. Trailing 2-4, Virali-Murugesan, nursing a dodgy knee, gave up the fight and conceded the tie.

In the first semifinal, Karunuday, who claimed the title in the ITF Mandya Open last week when Frenchman Antoine Escoffier withdrew in the final, fought tooth-and-nail in the first set against Vardhan, saving four break points before winning the tie-breaker.

Vardhan went 2-0 up in the second when Karunuday, who had twisted his ankle during the tie-breaker, decided to call it quits.