Source for Indian players schedule

[RohitG]

Praj says he might consider going to Kazakhstan. After that, France and Spain offer 2 challengers each in the same weeks. Most of the players will have to face better competition as the cutoffs will be higher

[sameerph]

The month long Challengers in China beginning from the first week of March have been cancelled due to the outbreak of the Corona Virus.

Now 3 more challengers in end March-April, Taipei- Nanchang-Changsha are cancelled. Anning Challenger starting 20th April is on the watchlist still.

So, overall 7 challengers in Asia cancelled during March-April. So, tough time for our players.

[Rajiv]

Yes this was expected , as the country (China) is still under severe lock down.
After the CNY holidays , the factories were supposed to open but they are still shut down, and the pending orders cannot be shipped out and new orders are on hold as the productions is not yet started, and with no definite date as when things would be back to normal ,the entire worlds's supply chain is now in a complete disarray

[Rajiv]

This is the schedule for our Guys starting next week in the following order.

Prajnesh
Dubai – Davis Cup – IW and then probably Miami

Sumit
Pau(Challenger in France) – Davis Cup – IW and then probably Miami

Ram
Columbus – Davis Cup – Kazahkistan (Challenger)

Mukund
Pau (France) – Week Off – Challenger in South Aftrica.

[RohitG]

Rawat too will feature in that South African challenger, just sneaked in the entry list, thanks to his renewed ranking of 430 which heacquired after a relatively good week at Bengaluru. This will be a challenger 50, different level of players but also slightly lower points and prize money.

I wonder if Praj and Sumit will enter a tournament in 2nd week of Indian Wells like Arizona challenger. Praj has a lot of points to defend, just to stay in top-150. Praj also needs to make it to Dubai qualies draw. He is 1st on the ALT currently.. they start on 22nd

[sameerph]

Yes, they ( Prajnesh and Sumit) should enter that Arizona Challenger as nothing do in intervening week between IW and Miami.

As of now, Saketh is still in the entry list of next week's Colombus Challenger in US next week. Remains to be seen though if he goes there as he is unlikely to make it to the entry list for the challengers the couple of weeks after that in Indian Wells and Arizona.

Btw, with Prajnesh dropping his Thailand Challenger SF points this week, Sumit will overtake Prajnesh as new India #1 next Monday.

[RohitG]

Yeah and he has only won 1 match so far in 2020. Wasted chance by not playing in Jan, making it much tougher to make it to French Open main draw. Davis cup takes one week away from his small window till mid April where he doesn't have much to defend and also 1 zero pointer and a couple of 3 pointers in his tally.

Wrt Potchefstroom, this is a challenger 50: prize money of 35k USD. Winner gets 50 points, finalist: 35, semi: 15.. in a 32 player draw with a bigger qualifying draw. I didn't get to read the official rules of challenger 50, but read on some website: no player ranked higher than 151 will be allowed to enter but 1 wildcard can be given to 51-100 and 1 to 101-150 from the same nationality as the tournament. If that's true, India is once again missing out. It's cheaper than organizing conventional tournaments.. sure the tournament gives you lesser points but it also eliminates the Asia-pacific vultures and makes it exclusive for our top-2; besides remaining guys are below 150 anyway. After all they need an average of 50-55 points per month to make top-100. Even if the wildcard thing isn't true.. it still gives a good chance to Indians below #150

[sameerph]

As of now, Saketh is still in the entry list of next week's Colombus Challenger in US next week. Remains to be seen though if he goes there as he is unlikely to make it to the entry list for the challengers the couple of weeks after that in Indian Wells and Arizona.

As expected, Saketh pulled out of Columbus challenger. He has not entered in Kazakhstan or South Africa either. He has not played anywhere except 2 home tournaments this year so far. It will be difficult for him to gain back in ranking with this scheduling.

[RohitG]

Trvaglia withdrew from Dubai, so Praj would have got into the qualies draw but he gets a main draw wildcard. Is there a thing for Indians getting wildcards at Dubai? Remember RamK getting one last year.

[sameerph]

Did Praj get one ? Not seen the news anywhere in news websites so far. Lots of Indians in Dubai. So, Indians do tend to get a wild card many a times there. Most probably Leander is also getting a wild card in doubles.

[jaydeep]

On 2020 Dubai Tennis Championships Wikipedia page, they are showing wild-cards for the singles to Prajnesh Gunneswaran and Mohamed Safwat.

[sameerph]

I wonder if Praj and Sumit will enter a tournament in 2nd week of Indian Wells like Arizona challenger. Praj has a lot of points to defend, just to stay in top-150. Praj also needs to make it to Dubai qualies draw. He is 1st on the ALT currently.. they start on 22nd

Yes, both of them are in the entry list of that Arizona Challenger. Crazy entry list though with 22 top 100 entered. Better than some of the ATP fields. There will be withdrawals though of those who make the second week at IW.

[sameerph]

The month long Challengers in China beginning from the first week of March have been cancelled due to the outbreak of the Corona Virus.

Now 3 more challengers in end March-April, Taipei- Nanchang-Changsha are cancelled. Anning Challenger starting 20th April is on the watchlist still.

So, overall 7 challengers in Asia cancelled during March-April. So, tough time for our players.

Now Annning challenger cancelled too. Also Jersualem/ Barletta Challengers in late March/ early April and Samarkand Challenger in May is cancelled. Also 3 Korean challengers postponed to August.

So, overall 14 challengers between March-June cancelled or postponed.

Of course if the situation worsens in France, French open and entire clay season may be in doubt.

[RohitG]

So Indian Wells getting cancelled.. what happens now to Prajnesh.. Sumit didn't play there last year but Praj will lose lot of points. Can these guys enter somewhere else? What happens to their points?

[sameerph]

Where else they will enter ? They are already in Indian Wells and couple of challengers of the week have started. If Miami too gets cancelled, they may allow players to enter challengers in those weeks but the I see there are challengers in France/Equador in the week of March 23 and challengers in Mexico city/Spain/France the week after that. In the current scenerio, I do not know if those challengers in France/Spain are going to be held at all.

No announcement on points so far. So, either everyone will lose points from last year or if it goes on for long they may allow a points freeze and allow those points which cannot be defended to be carried forward. But, I don't know if it has ever happened before.