BENGALURU: Coming into the Bengaluru Open Challenger, France’s Benjamin Bonzi was a relatively unknown name. With no ATP Tour title since turning pro in 2015, Bonzi wasn’t among the favourites to reach the finals. Yet, he turned out to be a giant killer. Before reaching semifinals, Bonzi had beaten 12th seed Nikola Milojevic, sixth seed Prajnesh Gunneswaran and second seed Yuichi Sugita.
On Saturday, he demolished top seed Stefano Travaglia of Italy 6-3, 6-4 at the KSLTA Stadium to book a summit clash with Australian James Duckworth, who beat Italian Julian Ocleppo 6-3, 6-2. Bonzi took advantage of Travaglia’s poor serves. The Italian had three double faults and Bonzi capitalised, winning seven of 12 break points in the first set. Travaglia struggled with returns also as Bonzi took the set 6-3.
In the second set, it Bonzi was at his best with his serves, firing six aces to dismantle Travaglia. Bonzi converted 94 per cent of his first serves as the Italian continued his struggle with returns. In the end, it Bonzi had no trouble cruising to victory over the World No 86.
In 2014, Bonzi had won the junior French Open doubles. However, the transition to seniors wasn’t smooth. In 2017, he had good results in ITF Futures and reached a career-high ranking of 176. But he failed to live up to expectations and fell to 368. “It was a difficult time as I couldn’t keep up the momentum. Beginning of this season, I needed to turn things around and changed my coach and playing style. I think it is helping. It was an important change,” said Bonzi.
Ram-Raja clinches doubles
Ramkumar Ramanathan and Purav Raja crushed Leander Paes’ dream of winning one last title on Indian soil. They cruised to a 6-0, 6-3 victory over Paes and Australian Matthew Ebden in the final.