Star Indian pair of Rohan Bopanna and Ramkumar Ramanathan came up with a superb performance to win the doubles title in the home ATP 250 event title, beating Australia’s Luke Saville and John-Patrick Smith at the 2022 Tata Open Maharashtra on Sunday. The Indian pair produced a scintillating display to overcome the Australian top seeds Saville and John-Patrick Smith 6-7(10), 6-3, 10-6 to claim their second ATP title together. It was Bopanna’s 21st doubles title, and second in Pune after having won partnering Divij Sharan in 2019. The Indian duo, which kickstarted the year on a high with their maiden ATP title together in Adelaide in January, started off well and despite some stiff challenge from the top seeds, put themselves ahead in the contest at 5-4 in the second set
Nagal dropped, Yuki returns for Davis Cup tie
Sumit Nagal has been dropped from the five member Indian Davis Cup team for the World Group 1 play-off tie against Denmark here next month, the national tennis federation said. Nagal (world ranked 222) made way for Yuki Bhambri (863) in the squad which also has Ramkumar Ramanathan (182) and Prajnesh Gunneswaran (228) as other singles players. The team has been selected keeping in mind the playing surface as both India’s top ranked singles player - Ramkumar and Yuki - are comfortable playing on grass courts. Gunneswaran and Nagal, on the other hand, are not grass court players. Besides, doubles specialist Rohan Bopanna has retained his place in the squad alongside Divij Sharan, the AITA said. Saketh Myneni and Digvijay Pratap Singh are the two reserve players in the squad, to be coached by Zeeshan Ali, and has Rohit Rajpal as non-playing captain.
Dhawan, Shreyas, Ashwin among top draws in IPL auction
Top Indian players, including senior opener Shikhar Dhawan and Shreyas Iyer, along with overseas stars such as Pat Cummins and Kagiso Rabada have been bracketed in the £200,000 highest base price category for the upcoming IPL auction. The mega auction is scheduled to be held in Bengaluru on Feb 12 and 13 and will see 590 players go under the hammer. The IPL announced the final list, which was pruned from the original list of 1,214 players released last month, after the franchises reverted with the players they are interested in. Among the 590 cricketers, a total of 228 are capped players, 355 are uncapped and seven belong to associate nations. Senior Indian players Mohammed Shami, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Umesh Yadav, Ashwin, Ishant Sharma and Ajinkya Rahane have also registered with a base price of £200,000. While Iyer and Dhawan are the top draws, the 10 teams are also likely to be involved in a bidding war for youngsters Ishan Kishan, Devdutt Padikkal, Washington Sundar, Deepak Chahar, last season’s top wicket-taker Harshal Patel, spinner Yuzvendra Chahal and fast bowler Shardul Thankur. All of them are in the top bracket. A total of 370 Indian players and 220 overseas cricketers will be up for grabs.
