Chennai Open, Erlich, Ram Breeze Past Indian Pair

Chennai, Jan 3: The fourth seed Israeli pair of Jonathan Erlich and Andy Ram breezed past the inexperienced Indian doubles pairing of Mohit Mayur Jayaprakash and Ramkumar Ramanathan in the first round of the doubles event of the Aircel Chennai Open 2012 here on Monday night.
 
The 18-year-old Jayaprakash and 17-year-old Ramanathan showed some spunk towards the latter stages of the match, but the accomplished Israeli pair exploited their inexperience in the highest level and won 6-2, 6-1.

The Indian pair, whose combined age is only a year more than 34-year-old Erlich, started well by going 2-2 in the opening set, before the opposition ran away with the match.

Erlich and Ram broke Jayaprakash and Ramanathan in games six and eight of the first set and games two and four of the second.

Where Erlich and Ram had a firm understanding of each other's movement, the Indian pair's outing clearly showed lack of match practice at the highest level.

The Israeli pair routinely lobbed the ball to the far court and smashed an overhead winner as both Jayaprakash and Ramanathan scrambled to the baseline to return the lob shot.
 
Though Ramanathan served reasonably well, at one point helping the duo win the sixth game of the second set from 0-30 with a couple of aces, in the end it was all too much for the Indian pair.

In the second round, Erlich and Ram will meet the winner of the first round match tomorrow between the Spanish pair of Nicolas Almagro and Pere Riba and the German-Austrian pair of Michael Kohlmann and Julian Knowle.