India’s Rohan Bopanna and Ramkumar Ramanathan, teaming up for the first-time on the ATP Tour, won the Adelaide International doubles trophy with a 7-6 (6), 6-1 win over top seeds Ivan Dodig and Marcelo Melo here on Sunday.
Bopanna’s excellent service returns at crucial times and Ramkumar’s all-round game tilted the match in their favour. In the one hour and 21 minute contest, the Indians saved all the four break points they faced and broke their rivals twice.
It was Bopanna’s 20th ATP doubles title and first for Ramkumar, who was playing only in his second summit clash at this level, having ended a runner-up at the Hall of Fame Tennis Championships in 2018.
“When Ramkumar is serving by your side, you can finish the point early, so that was an advantage,” said Bopanna, adding: “I am surprised not many Indians entered this event. If anyone had landed here, they would have entered the field since not many players were there.”
Bopanna and Ramkumar will split $18700 as prize money and have also earned 250 ranking points each. After saving an early breakpoint, Bopanna and Ramkumar upped their game.
In the seventh game, when Melo served at 30-0, Bopanna’s unreturnable service on the right of the Dodig and later a crushing forehand winner made it 30-all but the Brazilian eventually held.
Bopanna then saved another breakpoint and converted the deciding deuce point to make it 4-4. Serving to stay afloat in the set at 5-6, the Indian pair was up 40-30 when Dodig created a winner on Bopanna’s serve that whizzed past Ramkumar on his right but the big-serving Coorgi hit an ace to drag it to a tie-breaker. At 6-6, Bopanna found a service return winner on Melo’s serve to earn their second set point and converted with his booming serve.
Barty on song
World No. 1 Ashleigh Barty was in imperious form as the Australian handed Elena Rybakina a 6-3, 6-2 defeat to win the women’s singles title and claim the 14th WTA crown of her career.
Barty, who won the event in 2020, dominated against the 22-year-old seventh seed from Kazakhstan to win in just over an hour, as she hits form a little more than a week ahead of the start of the Australian Open.
“The work that I do with my team behind the scenes puts me in the best possible position to play good tennis time, and time again each and every time we're asked,” Barty said. “I certainly feel pretty good coming into the summer.
“I feel good leading up to an Australian Open like I have every year. Each and every preparation is unique, each and every preparation is different. “So we take it for what comes and what it is, move on, try and do the best that we can in every opportunity, whether that's here in Adelaide or it’s in Melbourne.”
In the men’s Adelaide ATP 250 event, French top seed Gael Monfils defeated second-seeded Russian Karen Khachanov 6-4, 6-4 for his 11th tour title. Former world No. 6 Monfils did not drop a set all week in Adelaide and the 35-year-old could not have hoped for a better build-up to the Australian Open.
Monfils, who was reduced to tears when he exited the Australian Open in the first round last year, was happy with his consistency in Adelaide.
