Ramkumar Ramanathan could not end India’s 20-year-long title drought in singles on the ATP World Tour but the 23-year-old got close to the top-100 as he climbed 46 places to a career-best rank of 115 after a runner-up finish at the Hall of Fame Tennis Championship.
Ramkumar lost the title clash of the ATP 250 event 5-7, 6-4, 2-6 to American Steve Johnson in almost two hours. But the runner-up finish gave him 150 points for a massive jump in his ranking along with a prize money of $52,340.
In the women’s singles rankings, Ankita Raina climbed 13 places to 201 after her title win in an ITF event in Thailand. The next best was Karman Kaur Thandi at 232, a loss of 16 places.
The last Indian to win an ATP singles trophy was Leander Paes, who incidentally had won on the grass courts of the same Hall of Fame tournament back in 1998.
“It was a great week for me. I think I gave my best all throughout the week. Steve was hitting some good forehands today. I think he played a good third set and got the better of me,” Ramkumar said after his match.
Yuki Bhambri continued to be the best-ranked Indian at number 86 despite a loss of one place. Prajnesh Gunneswaran dropped two places to 186 and was followed by Sumit Nagal (269), Saketh Myneni (339, +18) and Arjun Kadhe (345, +16).
In the doubles, Rohan Bopanna was the top-ranked Indian at unchanged 27 and was followed by Divij Sharan (38, -2), Leander Paes (80, -5), Purav Raja (83, -2) and Jeevan Nedunchezhiyan (87, +4), N Sriram Balaji (96, +3) and Vishnu Vardhan (98, -6).
With inputs from PTI