India’s Siddhant Banthia and his Bulgarian partner Alexander Donski won the men’s doubles title at the Rwanda Challenger 2025 tennis tournament in Kigali on Saturday.
Banthia and Donski, seeded fourth, defeated third seeds Geoffrey Blancaneaux of France and Zdenek Kolar of Czechia by a 6-4, 5-7, 10-8 scoreline to clinch their maiden ATP Challenger tennis title as a team.
This was also the first ATP Challenger title for the 24-year-old Banthia.
The summit clash was a battle of fine margins. Both teams held serve through eight games before Banthia and Donski struck in the ninth, breaking their opponents before serving out the first set to love.
The second set followed a similar pattern with Blancaneaux-Kolar breaking at the perfect moment in the 12th game to force a super tiebreaker.
In the super tiebreaker, Banthia and Donski led 6-4 before Blancaneaux-Kolar edged ahead 8-7. However, the Indian-Bulgarian pair pocketed the final three points to close out the final in one hour and 37 minutes.
Banthia and Donski fired seven aces and saved six of the seven breakpoints they faced over the course of the match.
In the semi-finals of the ATP Challenger 100 tournament, the Indian tennis player and his partner beat wildcard entrants Alafia Ayeni of the USA and Luka Pavlovic of France 6-4, 6-3 after getting the better of the unseeded opponents in their first two rounds.
Meanwhile, India’s top-seeded Niki Poonacha and Zimbabwe’s Courtney John Lock suffered a shock first-round exit after losing to unseeded Frenchmen Corentin Denolly and Clement Tabur. [ Source : Olympics.com]. (End)