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Gets a really good partner and runs into Huey in the 1st round. Sometimes the God of draws can be very unfair.

Divij and his British partner Neal Skupski lost in the straight sets against Huey and Martin.

At €540K Moselle Open 2017, Metz, France

[R1] Divij Sharan (IND)/ Neal Skupski (GBR) l Treat Huey (PHI)/ Fabrice Martin (FRA) 46 26

With Purav deciding to play with Lee, is the purav-dvij pair officially broken

It looks like that is the case as of now at least although there is no official confirmation or anything from the duo. In a recent newspaper interview, Leander mentioned that he is excited to play with a fellow Indian player again and will take his ranking back up again with that. That means for this year at least Leander-Purav will play together.

Lets see how this decision turns out with Purav

If you commit DF on match point the partnership will not last long. This is the clear message for Divij Sharan.

Leander is one hell of a stubborn person. That is why we had an Olympic medal amidst a long drought. Davis Cup wins, etc. Beside him, possibly PKB looks like a pessimist. I think he has been itching for a long while to prove that the LP-MB success was because of him and he could have done that with someone other than MB. For the record, even as an LP fan, I feel that he is full of ****. MB had a substantial contribution. After MB, the only world-class doubles Indian player was Rohan. And, RB was in the MB camp. So, LP did not get that chance, if I remember correctly (I'm getting old; so I cannot rely on my memory that much these days.) Now, he has Purav. I think he will be fired up to prove that he can win a GS with an Indian player who is not MB. For a player like him, with his achievements, he possibly needed some motivation to keep playing in the challengers. Now he got his motivation. He may well have a last hurrah (ATP title with Purav) at some point. I cannot rule it out. Mother Nature is invincible. LP will be defeated eventually. But, now I sort of enjoy this duel between Mother Nature and Stubborn Man.

I totally agree with you, Prasen. I too believe that this partnership will motivate Paes to do better than his best in the past couple of years. I see this as a winning situation for both. At 30, Purav is not getting any younger. This is a golden opportunity for him to be a regular partner to a "world-class" player (yes, loads of pun intended ). May they win a big title soon

- Varma

Divij's partnership with Yen-Hsun Lu also has great potential.

Varma wrote: ↑Sat Sep 23, 2017 6:32 pm I totally agree with you, Prasen. I too believe that this partnership will motivate Paes to do better than his best in the past couple of years. I see this as a winning situation for both. At 30, Purav is not getting any younger. This is a golden opportunity for him to be a regular partner to a "world-class" player (yes, loads of pun intended ). May they win a big title soon

- Varma

After watching purav at D.C. I don't see this guy winning a masters 1000 doubles event let alone a grand slam. Lee may be able to do it again but he will need a far more able partner. What I saw of puravs serves (first and second) inspires zero confidence.

Winning an ATP 1000 is as good as winning a grand slam as almost all the top pairs play there too. I too not think Purav or Divij has that capability as of now, don't think Leander can do it to at this stage. But, they are capable of winning ATP 250 tournaments which is not bad at all. Everyone cannot be top 10, even top 50 is pretty good, top 100 is also respectable particularly considering our recent history.

Congratulations to Divij Sharan for winning his third ATP title this time with Scot Lipsky at the Antwerp ATP 250. His earlier 2 titles were along with Purav Raja.

These are the pair's results this week.

At €589K European Open 2017, Antwerp, Belgium

[R1] Scott Lipsky (USA)/ Divij Sharan (IND) bt (WC) Steve Darcis (BEL)/ Arthur De Greef (BEL) 75 46 10-8
[QF] Scott Lipsky (USA)/ Divij Sharan (IND) bt (3) Raven Klaasen (RSA)/ Rajeev Ram (USA) 64 46 10-8
[SF] Scott Lipsky (USA)/ Divij Sharan (IND) bt (2) Ivan Dodig (CRO)/ Marcel Granollers (ESP) 06 64 10-5
[F] Scott Lipsky (USA)/ Divij Sharan (IND) bt Santiago Gonzalez (MEX)/ Julio Peralta (CHI) 64 26 10-5

With this title Divij should break into top 50 for the first time in his career when the new rankings come out tomorrow.

Congrats Dvij. The $16,000 will be of great help.

Congratulations, Divij! That was an inspired performance this week!

Omkara wrote: ↑Sun Oct 22, 2017 3:31 pm Congrats Dvij. The $16,000 will be of great help.

I think that is €16,000 which got to be a little more than $18,000.

- Varma

My bad. But the prize money is even better