ITF Team Juniors (u16 Davis/Fed Cup, u14 World Jun. Tennis)

[sameerph]

Today, we lost to Australia 1-2. But, since we won that 1 singles we finished as group toppers.

(6) India l. (2) Australia 1-2

[S2] AARYAN ZAVERI (IND) l. PHILIP SEKULIC (AUS) 36 16

[S1] DEV JAVIA (IND) bt ALEX BULTE 46 75 61

[D] DEV JAVIA (IND)/ SANDEEP MOHANDOSS (IND) l. ALEX BULTE (AUS) / PHILIP SEKULIC (AUS) 57 26

In the end it did not matter as third seeds Japan got upset by Thailand. We will meet Japan in the QF with the winner advancing to world group. Tough match as Japan is usually very good in juniors.

[Akin44]

Boys team missed it!! 0-2 loss against Japan!!

Hope u14 girls do better

[sameerph]

Indian boys won 2 classification matches to finish fifth.

India d. Chinese Taipei 2-0

AARYAN ZAVERI d. YAN CHENG CHEN 63 26 64
DEV JAVIA d. HAN CHIH LIN 62 76(5)

India d. Philippines 2-1

SANDEEP MOHANDOSS l. JOSE ANTONIO TRIA 57 63 57
DEV JAVIA d. MICHAEL FRANCIS II EALA 63 63
DEV JAVIA / SANDEEP MOHANDOSS d. MICHAEL FRANCIS II EALA / JOSE ANTONIO TRIA 62 76(3)

Overall decent performance with sole loss against Japan leading to them not qualifying.
Our no. 1 Dev Javia from Gujarat is the kid to watch out for. He lost only 1 match against Japanese no. 1. Earlier last month in the Asian under 14 championships he had finished second and even beat Korean no.1 who was dominant this week. Lets see how he progresses.

[sameerph]

Bad start for Indian girls in the under 14 event this week.

2016 Asia/Oceania Final Qualifying WJT- Girls under 14

India l. New Zeland 1-2

SANYA SINGH l. THARUBPHET HOMKRUN 17 67(6)
TANISHA KASHYAP d. MONIQUE BARRY 75 67(4) 61
SHREYA GULI / TANISHA KASHYAP l. MONIQUE BARRY / THARUBPHET HOMKRUN 46 46

We play hosts Thailand tomorrow who beat Srikanka 3-0. So, a loss in tomorrow's match will put us out of contention from SF race.

[sameerph]

Our girls had our second loss today. So, it is all over for our under 14 girls.

2016 Asia/Oceania Final Qualifying WJT- Girls under 14

India l. Thailand 1-2

SHREYA GULIA l. MANANCHAYA SAWANGKAEW 16 16
TANISHA KASHYAP d. MONIQUE BARRY 61 61
SHREYA GULIA / TANISHA KASHYAP l. ANCHISA CHANTA / MANANCHAYA SAWANGKAEW 36 16

It looks like our no. 1 player Tanisha Kashyap is quite good as she won both her matches against Thai and New Zeland no.1. But, she had no support at all which is strange as usually we are getting steady stream of talent on girls side these days. Sometimes, selection of teams are not ideal at this age group.

So, overall we qualified 2 teams out of possible 4 in the junior team events this year. This is better than 1 team in the last 2 years and this time these are under 16 teams as opposed to under 14 teams in the last 2 years.

[sameerph]

After the losses on first 2 days, our under 14 girls beat Sri lanka 3-0, beat Kazakhstan 2-0, lost to Uzbekistan 1-2 and today beat Malaysia 2-0 to finish in 11th place.

Not good overall but our no. 1 Tanisha Kashyap won all her 6 matches although it must be said that she did not have to face no. 1 from the nations which finished in top 3 places- Hongkong (surprisingly), Japan and Korea. Lack of good no.2 might have cost us a place in the world group.

Interestingly, Australia could not get any of their 4 teams thru to the world group which must have happened after many years. Is junior talent drying up there or is it a one-off year ?

[sameerph]

Under 16 junior davis cup and Fed cup finals start today in Budapest, Hungary.

This time both our teams are competing in the finals after a long time.

In junior davis cup, we are 8th seeds and are in group A along with top seeds Canada, hosts Hungary and Chile.

In junior fed cup, we are not seeded and are in group B along with 4th seeds Poland, 5th seeds Canada and Hungary.

These are our team and coach details -

Boys: Adil Kalyanpur, Siddhant Banthia, Megh Patel. Captain: Vishaal Uppal.

Girls: Mahak Jain, Sathwika Sama, Shivani Amineni. Captain: Ankita Bhambri.


We play Chile in boys today and a tough match against Poland in girls.

[sameerph]

Our boys made a good start beating Chile 3-0 but girls got thrashed by Poland 0-3.

Junior Davis Cup

(8) India d. Chile 3-0

Siddhant BANTHIA d. Alan SANSON 46 62 64
Adil KALYANPUR d. Ignacio BECERRA 67(2) 76(6) 60
Siddhant BANTHIA / Megh PATEL d. Garizon ABARZUA / Alan SANSON 64 64

Good work by Adil and Siddhanth to prevail in 3 sets.

Junior Fed Cup

India l. (4) Poland 0-3

Sathwika SAMA l. Maja CHWALINSKA 06 16
Mahak JAIN l. Iga SWIATEK 06 06
Shivani AMINENI / Sathwika SAMA l. Stefania ROGOZINSKA-DZIK/ Iga SWIATEK 16 46

Pretty bad losses for our girls especially for Mahek although Polish #1 is ranked 12th in ITF juniors rankings.

[sameerph]

Both our teams lost today.

Junior Davis Cup

(8) India l. Hungary 0-3

Siddhant BANTHIA d. Mate VOROS 26 16
Adil KALYANPUR l. Daniel KHIN 46 46
Siddhant BANTHIA / Megh PATEL d. Daniel KHIN/ Mate VOROS 64 36 3-10


Junior Fed Cup

India l. Canada 0-3

Shivani AMINENI l. Isabelle BOULAIS 67(8) 16
Mahak JAIN l. Bianca Vanessa ANDREESCU 16 16
Shivani AMINENI / Sathwika SAMA l. Isabelle BOULAIS/ Layne SLEETH 67(7) 67(4)

Mahek has got a reality check done in the first 2 matches. She got 12th ranked Pole yesterday and 7th ranked Canadian today. It will only get easier from here on.

Our boys play Canada tomorrow in last group match. Canada have current world # 2 junior Augur-Allissime in their ranks. So, upset is out of question and unless Chile upsets Hungary we will finish 3rd in the group and fight for 9th-12th position.

Our girls play Hungary to avoid last place in the group.

[sameerph]

Both our teams lost today.

Junior Davis Cup

(8) India l. (1) Canada 1-2

Siddhant BANTHIA d. Chih Chi HUANG 61 26 46
Adil KALYANPUR l. Felix AUGER-ALIASSIME 36 06
Adil KALYANPUR / Megh PATEL l. Felix AUGER-ALIASSIME/ Chih Chi HUANG 67(4) 67(3)

Decent fight against top seeds Canada with a good win for Siddhant.


Junior Fed Cup

India l. Hungary 0-3

Shivani AMINENI l. Adrienn HORVATH 46 46
Mahak JAIN l. Reka ZADORI 64 26 16
Shivani AMINENI / Sathwika SAMA l. Fanni GECSEK/ Adrienn HORVATH 36 16

So, we now play in 9th -12th position in boys ( first match against Switzerland tomorrow). Our girls play 13th-16th play off and play Belarus tomorrow.

[sameerph]

In the play off matches, our boys lost both their matches against Switzerland 1-2 and Germany 0-2 to finish 12th. Overall, we seemed to struggle on clay. At #1, Adil Kalyanpur lost 3 of his 4 matches while at #2 Siddhanth Banthia was better as he won 3 out of his 5 matches. Megh Patel lost the only match he played.

Our girls lost the Belarus 0-3 but in the last match avoided the wooden spoon by beating New Zealand 3-0. They finished 15th. Again somewhat disappointing show.

[Varma]

It is understandable how our kids are not all that comfortable on clay, but I am really disappointed that Adil won only 3 out of 4 matches. With his background of working with Tony Nadal, I had expected him to do better than this.

- Varma

[PKBasu]

Siddhant Banthia did quite well. He's the kid who won the "HSBC road to Wimbledon" in 2014 (which meant he would play the 2015 junior Wimbledon). He never did turn up at Wimbledon, leaving us to wonder what the hoopla over that big tournament for kids was about. Still only ranked around 260 in the junior ranks, Banthia's progress so far has been odd. Good to see him play to a reasonable standard near the top of his age group in junior Davis Cup.

[sameerph]

Yes, Banthia was quite decent and he is progressing albeit at a slower pace than we like. As Varma said, Adil's performance is disappointing. Loss to top 10 Canadian player is fine but not his losses to # 1 players from Hungary and Switzerland , both of whom are ranked lower. Adil is someone who possesses the best physical tools among our juniors ( being taller than 6 feet) and also seems to have got the best of the training facilities. In that relation his performances so far are not looking up.

[Abish arul]

both adil and banthia are not physically developed built for an 16 yr old they need to work on that too