Indian challenge ends at Maharashtra Open

Pune, Feb 9 (IANS) The Indian challenge at the Maharashtra Open ended with men's doubles pair Ramkumar Ramanathan and Purav Raja losing to Israel's Jonathan Erlich and Belarus Andrei Vasilevski 7-6(3), 6-4 in the semi-final.Ramkumar's serves were largely on target but Erlich and Vasilevski matched it every time with their returns. The Indians fought from a break down to save set point in the first set and eventually took it to tie-break. However, Erlich and Vasilevski dominated much of the tie-break and won it 7-3. Ramkumar and Purav were both guilty of a number of unforced errors and lost pointsa the net. They managed to keep away any break attemps from their opponents in the second set until 4-4 when Erlich and Vasilevski finally went a break up in the set. They held the final game for love and went through to the final.
--IANS rkm/sdr/