Dhamne gave a good account of himself in the quarterfinal tie against Martineau.
| Photo Credit: K. MURALI KUMAR
India’s singles hopes at the Dafa News Bengaluru Open ATP Challenger 125 were extinguished on Thursday as Manas Dhamne and Dhakshineswar Suresh lost their respective quarterfinals.
Both defeats at the S.M. Krishna Stadium here came at the hands of Frenchmen, with Dhamne beaten by Matteo Martineau 6-4, 7-6(5) and Dhakshineswar by Harold Mayot 7-6(5), 6-2.
Of the two, the teenaged Dhamne put up the better fight. He had his chances in each of the two sets, and even earned two set-points to stretch the contest into a decider. But a bit of inexperience and some impatience cost the youngster.
As early as the second game, Dhamne had two break-points, but fluffed both. The 18-year-old had another opportunity when his opponent was serving at 5-4, but sent a forehand wide.
On set-point, Martineau drew Dhamne into a long rally and it ended with the latter hitting a desperate double-fisted cross-court backhand wide.
In the second stanza, action was subdued until 4-4, but at 15-15, the level lifted. Dhamne allowed Martineau two looks at a break but erased them with an excellent forehand and a giant serve.
After holding to 5-4, Dhamne came within a point of levelling the tie twice, but Martineau got out of jail with an advancing cross-court forehand winner and a neatly executed volley.
In the ensuing tie-break, a nonchalant slapped return at 3-3 earned Dhamne a mini-break. But the local favourite again ceded the advantage by losing both points on his serve.
Martineau fired an ace to earn two match-points, and it was not long before he set-up a last-four meeting with top seed Pedro Martinez.
The Dhakshineswar-Mayot fixture was less eventful and mostly middling. It did not help that Mayot, because of a left-wrist injury, could only slice his backhand, and the Indian had his right leg tended to by the physio in the middle of the second set.
Mayot will take on sixth seeded Kazakh Timofey Skatov next.
Other results (quarterfinals): Singles: Pedro Martinez (Esp) bt Cedrik-Marcel Stebe (Ger) 6-2, 6-0; Timofey Skatov (Kaz) bt Jonas Forejtek (Cze) 6-4, 6-2.
Doubles: Arthur Reymond & Luca Sanchez (Fra) bt Adil Kalyanpur & Saketh Myneni 5-7, 6-4, [10-8]; Nicolas Barrientos (Col) & Benjamin Kittay (USA) bt Prajwal Dev & Nitin Kumar Sinha 6-7(3), 6-3, [10-8]; Sriram Balaji & Neil Oberleitner (Aut) bt Petr Bar Biryukov (Rus) & Grigoriy Lomakin (Kaz) 6-7(6), 6-4, [10-6]; Max Houkes & Niels Visker (Ned) bt Pruchya Isaro (Tha) & Niki Poonacha 7-6(2), 7-6(1).
Published – January 08, 2026 08:40 pm IST