At the Infosys Hall of Fame Open in Newport, Rhode Island, Ramkumar Ramathan partnered with British Joshua Paris as a wildcard doubles. In the first match, they faced sixth seeded Andre Goransson (SWE) and Sem Verbeek (NED).

The match started with struggle on both sides. For example, the Indian-British team just had a first serve percentage of 38% in the first set, while their opponents faced four break points at the same time. However, the all-European seeded Goransson and Verbeek could save all four of them, while they managed to break by themselves in the sixth game of the first set. With a 5-3 lead, the no-ad rule lead to the situation at deuce, that there was a break point as well as a set point. Goransson and Verbeek survived and won the first set by 6-3.

The second set felt quite straight. Both teams improved and stabilized their game, there were some better rallies as well. After Ramanathan and Paris won the ninth game at their own serve, leading 5-4, there was still not a single break point in the whole set. The more, it surprised that the seeded team opened the door for the match tie-break. In that tenth game, they faced a 0-40 situation. Due to the weird ATP doubles tennis no-ad rule, this meant a quadruple break and set point for the underdogs. They thankfully went for that chance in the first opportunity.

The decider felt to be rather straight as well. The first seven points were all won by the serving team. Mental strength felt to be a strong factor in this match. The nominal underdogs lost both points at own serve, making them finally trail by 3-7. However, they did not give up and also profited from mistakes by their competitors. Finally, with Ramanathan to serve, the score was tied again, 8-8. However, he and his partner could not profit from that momentum, lost the next two points and finally had to bow out of the tournament.

MD R1 Andre Goransson (SWE) / Sem Verbeek (NED, #6) bt. Joshua Paris (GBR) / Ramkumar Ramanathan (IND, WC) 6-3 4-6 10-8

More pictures of the match can be found on flyctory.com (match report taken from there).