It proved to be a not-so-good weekend for Indian tennis players in both singles and doubles on the WTA and ATP tour.
India’s top-ranked singles players Ankita Raina and Prajnesh Gunneswaran lost their qualifying matches on grass on Saturday.
Jessica Pegula beat Raina 6-1, 6-0 in the first qualifying round of the WTA event in Birmingham while Prajnesh lost 1-6, 4-6 to James Ward in the qualifying of the ATP 500 event at Queen’s London.
Meanwhile, Sumit Nagal’s good run at the ATP Challenger in Lyon came to an end in the semi-finals. The Indian lost 1-6, 1-6 to fourth seed Elia Ymer. In the quarter-finals, he had shocked top seed Albert Ramos Viñolas 7-5,7-6 (2).
On Sunday, Rohan Bopanna missed out on winning his second title of the season, ending as runner-up at the ATP Mercedes Cup with partner Denis Shapovalov in Stuttgart on Sunday.
The unseeded Indo-Canadian pair went down to top seed Bruno Soares and John Peers 5-7, 3-6
in the final.
Bopanna had earlier won the season-opening Tata Open Maharashtra in Pune with compatriot Divij Sharan. It was the third tournament together for Bopanna and the Canadian youngster, having competed at Indian Wells and Miami Masters before.
Bopanna and Shapovalov had earlier knocked out third seeds Bob Bryan and Mike Bryan before getting the better of the French duo Lucas Puille and Jo-Wilfried Tsonga in quarter finals. In the semi-finals, they beat Australian Nick Kyrgios and Matt Reid 6-3, 6-4.
N Sriram Balaji and James Cerretani lost their semi-final match 6-4, 1-6, 7-10 to Santiago González and Aisam-ul-Haq Qureshi in the Challenger in Nottingham.
The Indo-American pair had earlier beaten the all-Indian duo of Jeean Nedunchezhiyan and Purav Raja 6-3, 3-6, 10-7 to reach semi-final.
However, Divij Sharan and Marcelo Demoliner won two straight matches to qualify for Halle grass-court event.