India's Ramkumar Ramanathan disappointed the audience as he went down fighting to Chinese Taipei's Ti Chen at the Kolkata Open, being held on the hard courts of the Bengal Tennis Association Complex here Thursday. Chen entered the men's singles semis with a 6-4, 3-6, 7-6(5) victory.
In the sixth game of the opening set, Ramkumar got lucky as he bagged the break of serve, going up by 4-2. But he followed it with a poor service game and a double fault to lose the lead with Chen equalising at 4-4.
Ramkumar once again let himself down as he dropped another service game with a double fault, eventually allowing the World No.230 to get away with the first set.
In the second set, Ramkumar was totally in control, playing some brilliant shots. The Indian broke Chen and went 4-1 ahead and levelled the match in the next four games.
In the decider, Ramkumar displayed mixed form. He played some brilliant strokes from both baseline as well as the net but at the same time made five double faults.
In the tie-breaker, Ramkumar was a mini-break up and at 3-1 from where he lost five consecutive points to be down 3-6. Two big serves helped him save two match points but Ramkumar ultimately failed to stop the 32-year-old Taiwanese who clinched the match and assured himself 29 ATP points.
Chen will face sixth seed Radu Albot Friday, who upset higher ranked Alexander Kudryavtsev 7-6(5), 6-3.
Meanwhile, Australian top seed James Duckworth, ranked 111 in the world, had it easy against Egor Gerasimov as the former won 6-4, 6-2. He will next face Belgian Ruben Bemelmans, who got the better of qualifier Richard Becker 6-7(5), 7-6(8), 6-2, in the last four.
