Ajay Ramaswamy ran out of luck in his maiden ITF Satellite Masters Tennis tournament final, losing to third seed Konstantin Gruber of Austria at the DLTA courts in Delhi on Friday.
The unseeded Ramaswamy's giant-killing run in the US $6,250 tournament ended when he was beaten 4-6, 4-6.
After an indifferent outing in the first three legs in Gurgaon, Ramaswamy had a fantastic run in this fourth leg where he overcame challenges from fourth seed Norikazu Sugiyama of Japan and compatriot Vijay Kannan, who had defeated second seed Alexey Kedriouk of Kazakhstan in the quarter-finals.
After the heartbreaking defeat, the 24-year-old, who won all his matches in this leg via tie-breakers, admitted that he was a bit "tired and anxious" on the D-day.
He got off to a great start as he gained a 4-1 lead in the first set without much fuss, but lost his way thereafter. He lost the next three games by missing out on important points and the Austrian caught up at 4-4.
Recouping his energies, the ONGC employee tried to regain the lead on his serve in the ninth game but ended up with three double-faults to concede a 5-4 lead to the Austrian, playing in India for the first time.
Gruber did not allow the Indian any point in the next game and took the set.
Ramaswamy and Gruber were level 3-3 in the second set after which Gruber broke the Mumbai player in the seventh and ninth games with superb lobs and drop shots that left his rival scrambling for answers.
The profusely-sweating Ramaswamy then lost patience and committed all sorts of mistakes which only hurried the Austrian's victory.
Guber, who had come into the final beating top seed and winner of the first three legs Simon Greul of Germany, earned as many as 28 ATP points with the triumph, meaning he would leap in the 400s from his present ranking in the 600s. His career-best ranking so far has been 403.
Ramaswamy will climb near 500 from his present 664.
