The lone Indian hope at the Chennai Open tennis tournament, Ramkumar Ramanathan, crashed out in the quarter-finals after putting in a gutsy performance against World No 48 Aljaz Bedene.

The 21-year-old Ramanathan, ranked 248 in the world, won a tight first set 7-6 on the tie-breaker, but went down 6-4 in the second. Despite fighting hard in the third set, including a game that he won with four aces in less than a minute, he could not hold on and lost 6-3.

Coming in as a wildcard in the tournament, Ramanathan pulled off a series of upsets, defeating Daniel Gimeno-Traver and Alexander Kudryavtsev, both ranked higher than him.