Indian juniors excel in Ukraine

Chigateri and Matthew defetaed the Ukrainian pair of Dmytro Kostyrya and Sergiy Stakhovskyy 6-4, 6-4 in the final.

Chigateri and Matthew were playing together for the first time and were unseeded because of their low individual doubles rankings.

Chigateri, 17, is a product of the the Tennis Village Academy, run by CGK Bhupathi, in Bangalore. He is ranked 496 in doubles on the ITF juniors listing. Playing with Rohan Gajjar, he had emerged runner-up at the Indian ITF Junior tournament at Chennai in September 2000 . At the 5th Namangan International Junior tournament in March 2001, he lost in the quarter-finals while partnering Omar Murgulia of Georgia.

Matthew, 16, is ranked 186 in doubles on the ITF listings. He won the 18th International Junior championships of Sri Lanka in Jan 2001 in partnership with Dannio Yahya of Malaysia.

Both Chigateri and Matthew had faired poorly in the singles draws in the recent events they played in that region. The doubles title however will be enough to raise their spirits as it is tough to travel to places where not many kids speak any language that you know -- and these two are playing their first set of foreign events.