Niki Kaliyanda Poonacha and Gonzalo Escobar win Lexington Open doubles title in Lexington, Kentucky; First title together on ATP Challenger circuit
Niki Poonacha wins ATP Challenger doubles title in Lexington with Gonzalo Escobar
Niki Poonacha wins ATP Challenger doubles title in Lexington with Gonzalo Escobar
The Indo-Ecuadorian pair beat top seeds Ray Ho and Ivan Liutarevich in the semis before saving two match points to defeat Andre Ilagan and Karl Poling in the final.
India’s Niki Kaliyanda Poonacha and Ecuador’s Gonzalo Escobar won the doubles title at the Lexington Open 2026 in the USA on Saturday.
The third-seeded tennis pair defeated American duo Andre Ilagan and Karl Poling 6(1)-7(7), 6-3, 11-9 in the final that lasted an hour and 42 minutes in Lexington, Kentucky.
The title was Niki Kaliyanda Poonacha’s 11th ATP Challenger doubles crown and fifth of the 2026 season. The Lexington Open was an ATP Challenger 75 tournament played on outdoor hard courts .
In the first set, the Indian-Ecuadorian pair secured an early break in the fourth game, but were pegged back when they lost serve in the seventh.
The set went into a tie-break, where Poonacha and Escobar were unable to find a response and went down 7-1.
The Indian-Ecuadorian duo mounted a comeback in the second set, securing a break in the third game. They held their advantage through the set before producing another decisive break in the ninth game to take the final into a super tie-breaker.
In the super tie-break, neither team was able to establish a lead of more than two points as the contest remained finely poised. Poonacha and Escobar, however, found themselves staring at defeat at 7-9.
The Indian-Ecuadorian duo then responded with four points in a row to turn the match around. They saved two match points in the process before completing the comeback to seal the title.
It was Poonacha and Escobar’s first title together on the ATP Challenger circuit.
Earlier, Poonacha and Escobar had to overcome the tournament’s top seeds on their way to the title, fighting back to beat Chinese Taipei’s Ray Ho and Ivan Liutarevich of Belarus 4-6, 7-5, 10-6 in the semi-finals.
The Indian-Ecuadorian pair opened their campaign with a 7(7)-6(2), 7(8)-6(6) win over Uruguay’s Ariel Behar and Great Britain’s Joshua Paris.
They followed it with a 6-1, 6-2 victory over Australia’s Colum Puttergill and USA’s Joshua Sheehy in the quarter-finals.
The title comes less than two months after Niki Kaliyanda Poonacha won the Open Sopra Steria de Lyon with Thailand’s Pruchya Isaro in June.
The 31-year-old Indian tennis player had also won the Bengaluru Open 2 ATP Challenger 50 with Saketh Myneni and the Menorca ATP Challenger 100 and Chennai ATP Challenger 50 with Isaro earlier this year.
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