Solapur W25, N.Mumbai W25, Gwalior W15 - Dec 12/19/26, 2022

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Solapur W25, N.Mumbai W25, Gwalior W15 - Dec 12/19/26, 2022

Post by jayakris »

The Indian circuit of three weeks starts in 2 weeks' time (to be followed after a break in the first week of January with another circuit). Solapur, Navi Mumbai and Gwalior in December.

The Solapur W25 entry list for the first week is really strong. The cut for 18 players right now is at #304 and Ankita was the second-to-last player who made it in. I am sure it will drop a bit to around 350 by the time we get going in 2 weeks, but Jeez... This is tougher than some W60 events out there on the ITF women's tour. EDIT/UPDATE: Those were my comments on the list from before the withdrawal deadline. Much less tougher entry list emerged later - Below.

- As of Dec 8th night.

Anastasia Kulikova (FIN,261)
Yvonne Cavalle-Reimers (ESP,288)
Diana Marcinkevica (LAT,298)
Ankita Raina (IND,302)
Valeria Savinykh (RUS,325)
Ekaterina Kazionova (RUS,340)
Valeriya Strakhova (UKR,373)
Ekaterina Yashina (RUS,380)
Tatiana Prozorova (RUS,386)
Conny Perrin (SUI,412)
Viktoria Morvayova (SVK,424)
Lexie Stevens (NED,431)
Rutuja Bhosale (IND,449)
Sahaja Yamalapalli (IND,488)
Daria Kudashova (RUS,496)
Priska Madelyn Nugroho (INA,512)
Ksenia Laskutova (RUS,531)
Sowjanya Bavisetti (IND,548)

[Plus 2 Special exempt spots, 4 wildcards, 8 qualifiers, to add]

(EDITED) Other Indians are in the qualifying entry list - like Vaidehi (#1 in Q), Zeel (#3), Riya (#4), Shrivalli (#8), Jennifer (#9), Humera (#11), Sharmada, Akanksha, Sravya, SaiSamhitha, Shreya, etc (as of Dec 8th night).
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Re: Solapur W25, N.Mumbai W25, Gwalior W15 - Dec 12/19/26, 2022

Post by sameerph »

Withdrawal deadline for Solapur is November 29, 2 Pm GMT. So, entry list will keep dropping till then. All those who are shown as priority 1 against their name are likely to stay. Ankita may just be seeded and mostly Rutuja will get into main draw. Tuesday night India time would be good time to look at final entry list.
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Re: Solapur W25, N.Mumbai W25, Gwalior W15 - Dec 12/19/26, 2022

Post by jayakris »

^^^ Ah, that explains it. I thought the withdrawal deadline was past. Few more hours to go... So a good number of them should fall off. Ankita getting seeded low is what I had expected. Will edit/update the list above, later.
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Re: Solapur W25, N.Mumbai W25, Gwalior W15 - Dec 12/19/26, 2022

Post by sameerph »

With entry list updated post withdrawal deadline, Ankita is 4th in list now, Rutuja makes it in and Sahaja just 1 out, should make it in.
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Re: Solapur W25, N.Mumbai W25, Gwalior W15 - Dec 12/19/26, 2022

Post by jayakris »

haha, everybody dropped out. Nice!! i will update the list above later. (EDIT: Updated the list above, as of Dec 5th morning IST)
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Re: Solapur W25, N.Mumbai W25, Gwalior W15 - Dec 12/19/26, 2022

Post by jayakris »

The cut has now dropped below 500, and it looks like Sowjanya, and Vaidehi will make it in by Saturday. Maybe Zeel and Riya too. Hopefully they can get wildcards, if not. (List updated above, on Dec 8th)
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Re: Solapur W25, N.Mumbai W25, Gwalior W15 - Dec 12/19/26, 2022

Post by jayakris »

Sowjanya also made the cut now. Vaidehi will make it too, once the SE spots clear.
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Re: Solapur W25, N.Mumbai W25, Gwalior W15 - Dec 12/19/26, 2022

Post by jayakris »

The top seed in the qualies is Kozarov (SRB), followed by two Thai players. Sreevalli is the 4th seed and Jennifer is the 5th.

That means Vaidehi, Zeel and Riya have made the main draw, through last-minute withdrawals, cleared SE spots or through wildcards.
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Re: Solapur W25, N.Mumbai W25, Gwalior W15 - Dec 12/19/26, 2022

Post by sameerph »

Acceptance list shows 2 available spots and 2 special exempt spots. So, Zeel and Riya would have made it directly making it 7 Indians directly in main draw - Ankita, Rutuja, Sahaja,Sowjanya,Vaidehi, Zeel and Riya.

From the entry list those who do not appear in qualifying draw- Vasanti Shinde, Sanjana Sirimalla. So, mostly they got wild cards for main draw along with 2 others. Sanjala has shown some promise this year.
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Re: Solapur W25, N.Mumbai W25, Gwalior W15 - Dec 12/19/26, 2022

Post by jayakris »

There were 8 foreigners and 24 Indians in the qualifying rounds at Solapur, and the only Indian wins on the foreigners came against two low-ranked Indian-American teenagers. In the second and final round of qualies, only the three Indians facing each other made it in. That just shows how poor our standards are. In the end, seven of the 8 top seed advanced to the main draw, and three were Indians seeds (#4 Srivalli, #5 Jennifer and #8 Sharmada). 7th seed Humera was upset by an unseeded 17 year old Korean. Qualifying results from ITF.

I was also sad to see that none of our 17 and 18 year old top juniors played the qualies. But then again, there are only about 3 or 4 players of any standard for ITF events right now on the girls' side, anyway (and 2 of them, Vaishnavi Adkar and Sanjana Sirimalla, got main draw wildcards)
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Re: Solapur W25, N.Mumbai W25, Gwalior W15 - Dec 12/19/26, 2022

Post by jayakris »

In the main draw, the top three entries had fallen behind #278 Ankita in ranking, so in the end she is the top seed (Haha, I was getting scared seeing that she was like among the last entries in the entry list at first!)... Seven direct entries, 4 WCs and 3 qualifiers make it 14 Indians in the draw.

The wildcrds went to the highest-ranked two 18 years old juniors, Vaishavi Adkar and Sanjana Sirimalla (who were #115 and #180 in the juniors earlier this year) and Ishwari Matere and Vasanti Shinde who must be MSLTA wildcards.

But Ankita, Zeel, Sahaja, and Vaishnavi are all in the same quarter of the draw with 6th seed Yashina :( .... Also, Sowjanya, Jennifer, Sanjana, and Srivalli, are all in the same quarter as the 2nd seed Cavalle-Reimers and the potential semifinalist from there (in my opinion) that is the 8th seed Priska Madelyin Nugroho. Rutuja, Vaidehi, and Riya are in the middle two quarters of the draw. Vaidehi gets the 3rd seed and Srivalli gets the 2nd seed, so not great.

Basically, a pretty poor draw for us to hope for more than a couple of players (if even that) in the quarterfinals.
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Re: Solapur W25, N.Mumbai W25, Gwalior W15 - Dec 12/19/26, 2022

Post by jayakris »

Sahaja and Zeel advanced today, but Riya got upset. The story of the day was all three wildcards playing very well in three-setters and two of them winning. Sahaja had to work hard for a 61 46 64 win over 17-year old wildcard Vaishnavi Adkar. Then came the big upset of Riya Bhatia by 22-year old Ishwari Matere, in 3.5 hour marathon barn-burner, 76(5) 26 76(12)... Actually Riya was 4-0 up in the final tirbreaker but Ishwari again turned the tables on her to pull it off after both had a few match pts each. Ishwari fully deserved the wildcard, for having qualified into three different ITF events this year, and she also fully justified getting it, on court. Finally, 18 year old Sanjana upset qualifier Jennifer Luikham, 64 76(5) too. Jennifer was up 4-0 in the first set, but Sanjana broke her 3 times to win the set, and closed it out with a tight second set in a TB.
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Re: Solapur W25, N.Mumbai W25, Gwalior W15 - Dec 12/19/26, 2022

Post by jayakris »

By the way, does anybody know what happened to Mihika Yadav? Around this time last year, she was starting on a 4-match losing streak, and already looking like she was having some injury or Covid or something. She got a wildcard (to Solapur itself, iirc) but couldn't play it because she twisted an ankle in practice. She played 6 Indian ITFs between Jan and June this year and went 2-6 (one win being on a retirement, and the other against an unranked Indian 17 yr old). All her losses, except the 36 16 loss to Vaidehi, were against players below top-800. She has not played since. That 2-10 run looked terrible. Is she having some long-term injury issue?

Whatever had happened to this top-30 junior talent, who was ranked in top-800s back as early as in 2016 when she was just past 16 years? She is still only 23 and has time, if she can make a comeback. But sad to see one more name disappearing.

Some 5 or 6 years ago, we were so hopeful of the group of Pranjala Yadlapalli (top-15 junior), Mahak Jain (top 30 junior), Mihika Yadav (top-30 junior) to eventually come through. Unfortunately none of them is playing the circuit now. Mahak is in college tennis at Georgia Tech. Pranjala had injury issues that she made a comeback from, but never fully. Mihika has just disappeared now. Nandini Sharma was a late-comer who showed some promise then, and she too isn't there (she is in the final year in college tennis at Univ of Central Florida, and just outside top-100 college rankings, like Mahak - neither of them doing all that great, which would be top-50 in college by the junior year). By now, I had hoped somebody or other from that group to at least be in the top-400 and seeded at this event, but it is not so. Sahaja from a year after that group, who did precious nothing in the juniors (!) is the one who has progressed over all of them. And Karman (top-30 junior a year before that group) also, of course.
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Re: Solapur W25, N.Mumbai W25, Gwalior W15 - Dec 12/19/26, 2022

Post by sameerph »

Yes, sad to see all that talent disappear. Karman remains only one still in contention to do something wothwhile. Pranjala was at the same level as Karman in juniors I think. But, she seems to be totally hit by injuries. Mahak was very good at a young age but just gave up juniors too early and then went to US college where she is not doing that great. Mihika was a notch below those 3 I think but has now disappeared too.

I am beginning to get enthused about results of Sanjana Sirimalla now. Will keep an eye on how she does in next year or so.
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Re: Solapur W25, N.Mumbai W25, Gwalior W15 - Dec 12/19/26, 2022

Post by jayakris »

But I was happy to see that Mahak finally is doing at least okay at Georgia Tech. Has had a decent start to this year inn the fall tournament, which caused her to reach right outside the college top-100. Hopefully she will move up in the regular season which is after January for 4-5 months.

When she moved from Mumbai to Indore to join Sajid Lodi's academy, and stopped playing juniors, we all thought it was trouble (and it was). She also went to European academies in a haphazard way (a bit of time here and a bit of time there - which doesn't achieve anything except multiple people messing with your game!). She never settled down into a plan that made sense, at least to us. Finally she is in US college tennis, playing and training with some focus. College tennis does not give you a whole lot of individual coaching of your game and techniques, but it definitely helps with confidence and the mental aspects of tennis. That is the nature of college tennis, especially in a good conference and in a good program like GaTech. So I am hoping to see her hit the circuit in a year and hopefully still make it by age 24-25 into top-400 after which anything can happen.

At 5 ft 3 inches, Mahak has limitations on the court, it would seem - but that hadn't stopped her from doing well late in the junior years. Sometimes talent is talent, and it may just start shining through at some point. I can hope...
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