Ramakumar Ramanathan : Emerging New Hero for Indian Tennis

Karma

7 years ago

In Antalya , Ramakumar Ramanathan created the history by 6-3 and 6-2 over world no 8 Dominic Thiem. Ramakumar was recognized in the year of 2014 when he beaten the India No 1 Somdev Devvarman in 2014 Aircel Chennai Open.

Ramanathan was born on 8 November 1994 and is a professional Indian Tennis player. For Indian tennis player it very difficult to prove himself on grass court. The antalya Open tournament usually played on grass courts only. Ramanathan got his stunning victory at Kaya Palazzo Resort in Beleck, Turkey.

Ramanathan shows his aggressive serving was the reason for comfortably notch up the Dominic Thiem in today game.

Dominic is currently holding the 8th position in Tennis world and Ramanathan on 222 rank. This victory certainly improve his ranking . Dominic already played with Peter Gojowczyk, Martin Klizan and Joao Sousa in Qatar Exxon Mobil Open and Aurtralian Open. This is really very good achievement for Chennai boy to play aggressive against him.He will get prize money of 439,000 USD after this victory.

It was unfortunate for Ramanathan not to qualify for Wimbledon. Last date for Wimbledon was 25 June.

The 22-year-old in fact came through the qualifying and then beat World No. 68 Rogerio Dutra Silva in straight sets in the first round.

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“Those matches really helped,” Ramkumar said. “It has been a tough year so far. After the Chennai Open, I trained for a few weeks before the Davis Cup in Pune and then I went to the United States and played quite a few tough Challenger events and reached the final in Tally. I was losing close matches. So I am very happy with this result.”

“I am going to enjoy this win but at the same I want to build on this and keep my head down and prepare for the next match,” said Ramkumar, who will next play former Australian Open finalist Marcos Baghdatis in only his second ever ATP 250 quarterfinal. “I would like to thank my coach Emilio Sanchez, the Tamil Nadu Tennis Association (TNTA), Indian Oil Corporation and Karti [Chidambaram] sir, who have continued to support me.”

The unheralded Ramkumar, ranked 222 in the world, brushed aside the Austrian challenge in only 59 minutes to make it to the last eight of the USD 439,000 prize-money tournament. This was his first-ever victory over a top-10 player in the ATP rankings.

His Davis Cup coach, Zeeshan Ali, and India’s foremost singles player in recent years, Somdev Devvarman, hoped that it will be a big turning point in his career.

“To beat a player like Thiem is definitely his biggest win,” Zeeshan said. “Just hoping that he keeps the momentum going. He has always had the potential and talent to do big things. His is not exactly a grass court game. But he has a big game. Also he has had an opportunity to play on grass thanks to Davis Cup when he made his debut in Chandigarh. He has also won the National grass court championship.”

“Having big wins can be monumental in a player’s career,” Devvarman told The Hindu. “It’s his first top ten win. He has had a tough season and moments like this can turn a year around. This will be nice moment to look back on, gain the self-belief that he can play against the best players and beat them. That’s the kind of mindset he has to have.”

Karti Chidambaram, Vice-President of the TNTA, which has been supporting Ramkumar for a decade now, termed the win historic. “You can talk about whether it was his (Thiem’s) strong surface or not, but to beat a top-10 player is just brilliant. Even in a practice match it is a big deal and shows Ram is a good player. I just hope he builds on this momentum. He is capable of being in the top-100.”

“I worked really hard for this win,” Ramanathan said after the match.

“I thank the crowd for coming out and cheering. I like the grass courts. Courts are fast. I took my chances and it worked out. I am having a great time here and thanks to the organisers,” he added.

It was in the eighth game of the second set that the 22-year-old Chennai lad served an ace to finish the match. There was no celebration as he calmly touched the court and shook hands with this year’s French Open semi-finalist Thiem.

“What an exciting win for @ramkumar1994 .. Beating a top 10 player should give him a lot of self belief on what he could be capable of,” India’s Davis Cup captain Mahesh Bhupathi tweeted after the sensational win.

The tournament has seen a remarkable turnaround from Ramkumar after an unimpressive start to the season that was dogged by poor form.

The strapping Ramkumar hit 10 booming aces and converted three break points, while Thiem only had one chance to break the Indian, which he failed to convert.

The biggest advantage was Ramkumar winning 90 percent points on his first serve, with 28 out of the 31 points going in his favour. This was comparatively more than Thiem’s 73 percent.

The percentage points on second serves was 56 compared to 44 from Thiem.

Coming in as a qualifier into the event, Ramanathan had earlier beaten Brazil’s Rogerio Dutra Silva 6-3 6-4 in the first round.

Ramkumar, however, could not make it to the Wimbledon qualifiers, the cut-off date for which ended on 25 June.