Ramkumar rallies to enter final of Eckental Challenger

India's Ramkumar Ramanathan fought back from a set down to beat Germany's Marvin Moller 4-6, 6-1, 6-1 and enter the final of the Eckental Challenger tennis tournament, in  Eckental, Germany, on Saturday.

The 25-year-old Ramkumar fired 12 aces and won five of seven break points on his way to the final of the Euro 88,520 event.

In Sunday's final, Ramkumar will face seventh seed Sebastian Korda of United States, who beat Ilya Ivashka of Belarus 6-2, 6-4 in the second semi-final.

This is his fifth singles final on the Challenger circuit and he is yet to win a title.

On Friday, Ramkumar achieved the best performance of the season by reaching the semi-finals with a straight set 6-2, 6-1 win over Evgeny Donskoy of Russia.

Before this event, making the Bangkok Challenger quarterfinals in January was the unseeded Indian's best result.

He resumed competitive tennis last month after a long break due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Entering the last-four clash on the back of a convincing quarterfinal win over Donskoy, Ramkumar started the match on the wrong foot, losing the first set 4-6.

However, he got his act together and with his much-improved net play aiding his other aspects of the game, Ramkumar pocketed the second set 6-1 on the centre court.

Ramkumar, who is ranked 206 in the ATP singles chart, continued in same vein in the third set and claimed it by a similar margin to win the match and sail into the final.