Jeevan Nedunchezhiyan (left) and Vijay Sundar Prashanth are all smiles as they pose with the spoils.
Credit: X/@HangzhouOpen
New Delhi: India's Jeevan Nedunchezhiyan and his partner Vijay Sundar Prashanth clinched their maiden ATP title together, winning the Hangzhou Open men's doubles event, while Yuki Bhambri and his French partner Albano Olivetti finished runners-up in Chengdu on Tuesday.
The unseeded Indian duo of Jeevan and Vijay scripted a remarkable comeback to defeat the unseeded German team of Constantin Frantzen and Hendrik Jebens 4-6, 7-6 (7-5), 10-7 in a one hour and 49 minutes battle.
For the 35-year-old Jeevan this was his second ATP Tour title, having won the Chennai Open with Rohan Bopanna way back in 2017.
This was Vijay's first-ever ATP Tour title.
After losing the first set 4-6, the Indian pair showed immense resilience, holding their nerve to force a tie-break in the second set, which they clinched 7-6 (5).
The match then headed into a deciding super tie-break, where Jeevan and Vijay displayed poise under pressure, prevailing 10-7 to seal the win.
The Indians managed two aces against their opponents' eight and saved two of three break points they faced.
Jeevan and Vijay remained rock solid on the second-serve points, winning 74 per cent of them.
Yuki misses a third
Yuki and his French partner Olivetti narrowly missed out on a third title this year, losing 4-6, 6-4, 4-10 to the top-seeded French pair Sadio Doumbia and Fabien Reboul in a tense final at the Chengdu Open.
Both teams battle hard, with Bhambri and Olivetti winning the second set to push the encounter to a tie-break before falling short in the final moments in a match lasting more than one hour 30 minutes.
The Indo-French duo showcased its serving power with six aces, compared to two from their opponents. However, they also struggled with six double faults that proved costly.
For the French duo, this was their first win over Yuki-Olivetti, who had won in their previous exchange in a round-of-16 clash at ATP Lyon Open.
Yuki-Olivetti, who defeated the second seeded doubles pair of Ivan Dodig and Rafael Matos in the semifinal, have won two ATP titles -- Swiss Open Gstaad in July; and BMW Open, Munich in April. Both were held on clay courts.
Nagal loses in Beijing Open qualifiers
India's highest-ranked singles player Sumit Nagal lost to sixth-seeded Pavel Kotov of Russia in the opening match of the Beijing Open qualifying round.
Nagal, ranked 83rd in the world, lost 2-6, 6-7 to the world No. 63 Russian in a match that lasted one hour 52 minutes.