Ramkumar Ramanathan of India fought gallantly before losing a gruelling three-setter against veteran Marcos Baghdatis in the quarter-final of the ATP 250 Antalya Open on Thursday, PTI reported.
It was another great show from the Indian tennis player after his shock win over world No. 8 Dominic Thiem. He, though, eventually went down 7-6 (7-0), 3-6, 6-7 (6-8) in match that lasted two hour and 43 minutes.
It was the experience of Baghdatis, a former world No 8 and Australian Open finalist, which helped him prevail over the world No 222.
Ramkumar saved five match points in the tiebreak before Baghdatis took the match off the sixth.
Till the final couple of points, the lanky Indian matched Baghdatis stroke for stoke, hitting as many as 10 aces compared to the Cyprot’s nine. However, he had 11 double faults along with only 42 percent successful first serve, which possibly was the only difference between the two players.
That was one aspect that troubled Ramkumar, who could only convert a single break point. Baghdatis successfully converted three break points.