Continuing his excellent run at the ATP Indore Open, Indian youngster Ramkumar Ramanathan toppled Chinese Taipei Davis Cupper Ti Chen in a marathon contest to reach his first-ever Challenger-level semifinal, here today.
After knocking out India's number two player Yuki Bhambri, 19-year-old Ramkumar today played humdinger of a quarterfinal, which he won 6-7(6) 7-6(2) 7-5 win after battling hard for three hours and 16 minutes.
He next faces compatriot Saketh Myneni, who beat his Asian Games silver medal winning partner Sanam Singh 7-6 (5) 6-3 in his quarterfinal.
"This is one of the best matches I have played. I will try my best in the coming days," Ramkumar said after his win.
"I am very happy that I won the match. It has given me good experience. I had to pick it up from the second set. I hung in there well. In the third set, I became more aggressive and went for my shots. Fortunately most of the shots went in and that unsettled his rhythm. Then by God's grace, I closed it out well," he explained.
Now one Indian is sure to play in the title clash.
The other semifinal will be played between top seed Aleksandr Nedovysov from Kazakhstan and Italian eighth seed Stefano Travaglia.
Nedovysov battled past Spanish fifth seed Adrian Menendez-Maceiras 7-6 (4) 7-6(4) while Travaglia saw off the challenge of Liang-Chi Huang 6-3 7-6(3).
Meanwhile, Somdev Devvraman and Jeevan Nedunchezhiyan won their yesterday's suspended quarterfinal against Sanam and Saketh 6-3 7-6 (4) before losing the semifinal 1-6 3-6 to Aleksandr Nedovysov and Menendez-Maceiras.
