India’s Divij Sharan and Purav Raja's campaign, at the Guadalajara ATP Challenger event in Mexico, ended with a straight set semi-final defeat at the hands of giant-killing pair of Marin Draganja and Mate Pavic.
The Indians fought hard before losing 6-7(2), 4-6 to the Croatian team in the close contest of the $1,00,00 hard court event.
The Indians split $2,160 as prize money and earned 35 ranking points each, which will be good enough to bring Divij back in the top-100 bracket.
The left-handed Divij is currently ranked 102.
The Croatian pair, which had shocked the top seeds earlier, fired as many as 10 aces while the Indian players could manage just four.
The only time the Indians came closing to breaking the rivals was in the third game of the second set, but the Croats escaped with an ace.
In the next game, the Indian pair was broken and that lead stayed with their rivals, who easily held to clinch the issue.
Divij and Purav play their last tournament in Mexico at Mexico City next week.
