Brandon Holt, a 26-year-old tennis player from America, had an awesome finish to his two weeks in India. On Sunday, March 02, 2025, he won the Bengaluru Open, a big tennis tournament, by beating Shintaro Mochizuki from Japan. The score was 6-3, 6-3, which means Holt won six games in each set while Mochizuki won three. The match happened at the KLSTA courts in Bengaluru, India.
This was only Holt’s second time winning a tournament like this, called an ATP Challenger. Both of his wins happened this year! He earned $28,400 in prize money, but even better, he got 125 points for winning. Points help tennis players move up in the world rankings. With the 50 points he got for coming in second place in another tournament in Pune, India, Holt is now super close to being one of the top 100 players in the world. That’s the best ranking he’s ever had!
After winning, Holt talked to the crowd watching the match. “It’s my first time in India and it has been great,” he said. “The energy of the fans has always been high. Thank you so much.” He was happy about his trip and how loud and excited the fans were.
For Shintaro Mochizuki, who is 21, losing was tough. This was the first time he didn’t win a final match in this kind of tournament after winning two others before. By the end, he was crying and looked really upset. Mochizuki tried hard all night, hitting the ball toward the edges of the court to score points. But he couldn’t hit it strong enough to get past Holt, who kept chasing down almost every shot.
Holt had a smart game plan. He focused on keeping the ball in play, waiting for Mochizuki to make mistakes, and sometimes hitting big shots when it mattered. It worked really well! In the first set, Holt won extra games—called “breaks”—in the second and sixth games, meaning he took those games from Mochizuki’s serve. Mochizuki won one game back in the seventh, but Holt still took the set.
In the second set, Mochizuki tried to move closer to the net and hit harder to break through Holt’s defense. But it didn’t work out. In the third game, Holt broke Mochizuki’s serve again. Then, in the eighth game, Holt stayed strong and kept his own serve even when Mochizuki had a chance to break him. Holt also hit a super cool shot called an inside-out forehand—a strong hit from one side of the court to the other—to win the first game of the second set.
The match ended in the ninth game of the second set. Mochizuki was serving and needed to win to keep the match going. But he messed up twice in a row by hitting the ball into the net on his serve—called “double-faults”—which gave Holt a chance to win the whole match. Then Mochizuki missed an easy overhead shot, hitting it into the net instead of over it, and that was it. Holt won!
Holt’s win in Bengaluru was a big deal for him. It showed how good he’s gotten at tennis and put him close to being one of the best players in the world. For Mochizuki, it was a tough loss, but he gave it his all.
