Adil Kalyanpur and Parikshit Somani through to the QF at the ATP 50 Royan Atlantique Challenger 2025

Roland Garros is over, and we saw Carlos Alcaraz defending his title a few weeks ago. It was considered as one of the greatest tennis matches ever. Several top-level tennis players and fans across the world were in awe considering the physicality of both the players who fought for more than 5 hours on the clay court, making it the 2nd longest grand slam final ever.

As we look forward to the grass season and the third Grand Slam of the year, Wimbledon 2025, there are a couple of ATP challenger tournaments going on, especially on the clay court where Indian doubles tennis players are thriving to win and climb up the ranking ladder.

Indian Tennis Daily brings you the storyline of two young Indian tennis players, Adil Kalyanpur, currently ranked 269th and his doubles partner, Parikshit Somani, ranked 330th in live rankings.

Adil and Parikshit are currently playing in the ATP Challenger 50 in Royan, France. Their opponent in Round 1 were Simone Agostini from France and Mario Mansilla Diez from Spain.

It was a tough match-up for Adil and Parikshit as their opponents were seeded fourth and were the favorites to win the match. Simone and Mario were absolutely crushing in the first set, bageling the Indian duo by 0-6 which included double faults and giving away break points throughout the set. The Indian duo could not find rhythm in front of their opponent’s play. This could have been a set-back and a forgettable loss for Adil and Parikshit.

And then, something happened during the break between the first set and the second set…

The “power of pause” helped them to recover, improve performance, decision making and initiating tactical play. Entering the second set, it was a do or die situation for Adil and Parikshit, but they held their nerves and kept playing good tennis shots, aiming at baseline, backups at the nets and grunting hard to win every point in the second set and eventually winning it by 6-3. This was a solid play from the Indian duo. The match is now tied with both teams winning one set.

Time for the crucial tie-breaks, the rule is simple in such challenger doubles tennis tournaments, the team who reaches the 10th point first with a margin of at least 2 points difference, is declared the winner.

This time, nothing could stop the Indian duo as they took an early lead in the tie-breaks and ultimately winning it. The final score was 0-6, 6-3 (10-5).

Adil and Parikshit will be up against the Spanish duo, Nikolas Sanchez Izquierdo and Max Alcala Gurri in the quarterfinals. The match is scheduled to start at 2.30 pm IST (11 am CST) on the 19th of June 2025.

Trivia – The ATP 50 Royan Atlantique Challenger Open event was previously held in 1981 and 44 years later, it has returned to the tennis schedule in 2025 making it a memorable tournament for the players to compete for the title.