Divij Sharan along with partner Ivo Karlovic saved five match points to advance into the second round of the Hall of Fame Tennis Championships to record his first ever ATP Tour level victory. On the other side, Prakash Amritraj crashed out of the singles event in Newport.
Divij made his Grand Slam debut at Wimbledon while Karlovic got the better of the Ukrainian combo of Denys Molchanov and Illya Marchenko by 4-6 7-6(1) 11-9 in the opening round of the $ 455, 775 tournament. Remarkably, Karlovic is playing his first tournament after recuperating from viral meningitis.
Prakash Amritraj suffered defeat at the hands of former world no.1 Lleyton Hewitt, losing his 2nd round match by 2-6 1-6 in the singles title. Actually, the Australian battered Amritraj six times while saving seven of the eight chances he encountered.
In fact, Divij plus big-serving Karlovic received two break chances in the first two service games of their rivals but could not convert and lost both at deuce. Additionally, Divij was broken in the fifth game at deuce. Both teams continued to hold serve after that and the Ukrainians dominated the set while riding on that break. Further, the Indo-Croatian again wasted a break chance in the 11th game of the 2nd set, which was ultimately decided through tie-breaker. Divij as well as Karlovic raced to a 6-0 lead before winning the tie break by 7-1.
Divij and Karlovic stared down at 4-9 during the match tie break but managed to save five match points and won seven points in a row to haul victory by 11-9.
They will play quarter-finals against Canada’s Adil Shamasdin and John-Patrick Smith of Australia.
