The Sports-India Community

Wonderful news that India will be hosting two Challengers in November. Really well timed, just when we have a number of Indian players -- Yuki, RamK, Prajnesh, Sumit, and hopefully a returning-from-injury Saketh -- perfectly poised to capitalise fully on the points offered.

Strange that there are 5 CHs in week 36 (second week of US Open) and none of our players have entered in any of them.

I think Yuki/RamK would prefer to be in the North American region in this period post US open and before davis cup. Unfortunately, none of these 5 challengers are in North America.

I see Prajnesh in the entry list of a challenger in Quito, Equador in that week and in the Bogota challenger the week before. Vishnu,Sasi etc, are in the alternates of China challenger.

Not sure why Sumit is not in any of the challengers. His scheduling has been strange of late.

Sin Hombre wrote: ↑Wed Aug 16, 2017 4:31 am Strange that there are 5 CHs in week 36 (second week of US Open) and none of our players have entered in any of them.

All those tournaments are scattered around the world and the nearest one being in Colombia and it would be unpractical to fly down to S America for just one tournament and than immediately rush back again to New York where Mahesh has held the camp.
Yes if there was no camp than the players had flexibility to play in Canada , S America.

Post DC there are string of Challengers in USA , and not sure whether both of our guys would stick around in USA or will travel to Europe for Challengers starting with Izmir or the ATP's and for the time being Ram has entered the ATP 250 in Metz France but is at least 10-15 spots away from the qualies list , and a week after Metz another ATP 250 in Shenzen China where both Ram and Yuki have entered and if they would be playing they would need to go through to the qualies

Indeed there are 2 atp 250 in china in the same week and yuki and ramk have entered both on alternates and so did the players above them.....
They are almost at same spots on the both lists signifying lot of common player and ultimately every player will have to decide to go this way(chengdu) or the other (shenzhen) surely there will be flurry of withdrawals on both lists but yess Bam n Ram would still need to play the qualies
And i really hope they do play it

Challenger calendar for February came out and we have $50K(+H) challenger in Chennai in the week starting 12th Febraury, 2018. I guess it is a substitute for Chennai open which they lost as Karthi had talked about at least keeping a challenger there.
Anyway, it is good for our players to get at least 1 home challenger in early part of the year. I dont know where Delhi challenger which was an annual fixture for 3 years in February has disappeared.

Interview from Bops on the Challengers in India: http://www.sportstarlive.com/atp/breakt ... 555730.ece

I'm sure he must have referred to some of the states in the country with major tennis presence organizing a CH every month. (And 12 is definitely not too much , China has had 11 in total this year ).

Also, Where is this quoted from?

bujilover wrote: ↑Sun Nov 19, 2017 3:55 pm I'm sure he must have referred to some of the states in the country with major tennis presence organizing a CH every month. (And 12 is definitely not too much , China has had 11 in total this year ).

Also, Where is this quoted from?

Wierd - My post was modified - either an admin modified by mistake or somebody had access. Anyway just modified my post above and hopefully did take enough precautions on the account

bujilover wrote: ↑Sun Nov 19, 2017 3:55 pm I'm sure he must have referred to some of the states in the country with major tennis presence organizing a CH every month. (And 12 is definitely not too much , China has had 11 in total this year ).

China is way ahead of us in everything. They have 4 ATP tournaments too. But, they have still not succeeded in bringing a player in top 100.

I will be happy with 6 challengers and about 15-20 futures in a year.

VReddy wrote: ↑Sun Nov 19, 2017 4:19 pmWierd - My post was modified - either an admin modified by mistake or somebody had access. Anyway just modified my post above and hopefully did take enough precautions on the account

Oh shoot, did I screw it up? We moderators are allowed to edit your posts, so if we clicked "edit" by mistake instead of "reply", it would change your post. I must have done that absent-mindedly?? So sorry...

Anyway, I was saying that "it is not just the greying beard but my fiend Bops may be actually becoming old and ancient" if he said "12 states" for 29 in India

Serves me right. I must be growing old. So we have everybody becoming way too old today... Bops, jaydeep, me...

Phew thanks Jay! I had changed password / secret question and some other pieces as it was old anyway but glad it was not something more!

sameerph wrote: ↑Sun Nov 19, 2017 4:28 pm

bujilover wrote: ↑Sun Nov 19, 2017 3:55 pm I'm sure he must have referred to some of the states in the country with major tennis presence organizing a CH every month. (And 12 is definitely not too much , China has had 11 in total this year ).

China is way ahead of us in everything. They have 4 ATP tournaments too. But, they have still not succeeded in bringing a player in top 100.

I will be happy with 6 challengers and about 15-20 futures in a year.

China's economy is more than 4 times larger than India's in nominal terms, so the number of tournaments is roughly proportional. I'd be happy if we have 1 ATP event, 4 challengers, and a full slate of futures. The most important in that groups is the futures as that is what enables our players to qualify into events outside India. Those who are already at the challenger level and certainly at the ATP level can typically compete in tournaments outside India.

ATP Challenger calendar for first 2 months of next year is out. The minimum prize money for challengers has gone up to US $80K now with 48 player draws and hospitality at all challengers mandatory. So, cost of organising a challenger has gone up. Therefore, there was fear of drop out of some challengers. But, for Jan-Feb there are 24 challengers next year as compared to 22 which were held this year. So, will be a good opportunity for more players to play challenger main draws with larger draws.

As for India, Chennai Challenger in the first week of February is there in the calendar. As for rest of Asia, there will be 2 challengers in Bangkok back to back after Chennai week. Last year those Bangkok challengers were in January. Now, there is an additional challenger in Vietnam in the same week of Australian open qualies week of Jan. 7.

With big ATP cup team event being introduced in the first week of the year, Pune ATP tournament is now being pushed back to first week of February. This is in the same week as 2 other ATP tournaments in Europe at Montepeller and Cordoba. So, this coming now after Australian open, the entry lists is likely to be much weaker.

It may be of advantage to our players as they will now get a chance to play Doha ATP too which will be still im first week.