All-Indian doubles final in offing

Chennai: Defending champions Ramkumar Ramanathan and Saketh Myneni moved to the semifinals of the Chennai Open ATP Challenger event with a comfortable 6-3 6-4 win over alternate pairing of Egor Agafonov and Evgenii Tiurnev in the quarterfinals, here on Thursday.

Another Indian team moving to the last-four pairs stage was second-seeded combine of Jeevan Nedunchezhiyan and Vijay Sundar Prashanth, who sailed past Zimbabwe’s Courtney John Lock and Japan’s Rio Noguchi 6-2 6-2 in a little over an hour. If the Indian teams win their semifinal matches on Friday, they will face off for the title on Saturday.

Ramkumar and Myneni will meet top seeds Ray Ho and Matthew Christopher Romios, who battled past another all-Indian pairing of Siddhant Banthia and Parikshit Somani to win 7-6 (3) 7-6 (3) in a match that featured no breaks of serve.

Nedunchezhiyan and Prashanth will take on the unseeded Japanese pairing of Shintaro Mochizuki and Kaito Uesugi, who upset fourth seeds Francis Casey Alcantara and Pruchya Isaro 7-5 6-4.

In the singles event, top seed Billy Harris secured

his spot in the quarter-finals with a comfortable 6-3 6-3

win against Turky’s Ergu Kirkin.

However, second seed Lloyd Harris and fourth seed Alexis Galarneau were both knocked out. Harris, a former US Open quarterfinalist, was dismissed 6-1 6-1 by Czech Dalibor Svrcina, while Galarneau went down 2-6 2-6 to France’s Kyrian Jacquet.

Former Australian Open semifinalist Aslan Karatsev also exited in the second round stage as he

went down 6-4 7-5 to

Kazakhstan’s Timofey Skatov. Fifth seed Shintaro Mochizuki and Ukrainian Oleksandr Ovcharenko also advanced.