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

[jayakris]

^^^ But the fact remains that AITA has just not ben doing a thing to address the situation of our entire tennis program (particularly at the junior levels) being in total disarray. Somebody needs to do something about AITA.

[Kumar]

Is it a temporary lull due to COVID or is this a long term stagnancy? Just curious who is our last top 10 ranked junior?

[sameerph]

After 2 years lull due to covid, these age group team competitions are back this year. From this week, under 16 and under 14 Asia Oceania quaifiers will be held 4 consecutive weeks all in New Delhi. Looks like no other Asian nation is still ready to conduct tournaments due to covid.

This week will be under 16 junior Fed Cup tournament. Most of the top Asia/Oceania nations are there except China. Our team has strong #1 player in Shruti Ahlawat who ranked in top 100 in ITF junior rankings. Our #2 and #3 players are not that great it appears, ranked below 900 in ITF junior rankings. We had Tejaswi Dabas who is ranked 235 eligible to play here but is not selected or not available.

We are seeded fourth and started with 3 wins in group stage - all 2-1 against Malaysia, Iran and Uzbekistan to top our group. Shruti has won all 3 of her matches and her doubles matches easily. But, our #2 and #3 players, Niyati Kukreti and Riya Sachdeva lost to Malaysian and Uzbek #2 players and lost their one double match which they played together. Niyati did win her singles match today finally against Iran. Overall, we need Shruti to carry the team thru.

We play Hongkong tomorrow in QF which appears winnable. However, making it to SF will not be enough to qualify for world group as only top 3 teams qualify for world group. So, we will have to win tomorrow and one more match between SF and the match after that. Tough but lets us see.

[sameerph]

And our girls beat Hongkong 2-1 to move into SF. Again Shruti won her singles and doubles match along with Niyati. But, our #2 Niyati had another bad loss against Honkong #2.

Semi final line up is Austalia vs Japan and Thailand vs India.

Again Shruti will have to carry the team if we have to either one of the next 2 matches for us to finish in top 3 and qualify for world group.

[jayakris]

Still looks tough, but there is a chance, I guess... Let us hope for the best.

[sameerph]

We lost 1-2 against Thailand in the SF.

Niyati lost 57 26 against their #2 player. Shruti thrashed their #1 players 61 62 but in doubles they lost 7-10 in super tie break.

Close but no cigar.

We will play Japan tomorrow for all important third place. That looks quite tough.

[sameerph]

Damn, we lost to Japan 1-2. We fielded our #3 Riya Sachdeva this time for second singles but got thrashed 16 26. However, Shruti brought us back with an excellent 62 61 win over Japanese #1 and ITF junior rank 52 Sara Saito to make it 1-1. But, in doubles they were too good for us winning 61 62.

I guess our best chance was to pull off a win against Thailand in SF and we just fell short in doubles super tie break. Australia and Japan were the 2 strongest sides it seems.

Anyway, excellent performance by Shruti Ahlawat who won all 6 of her singles matches and won 3 of her 5 doubles matches. And in singles only in first match against Malyasia she was taken to a tie break in one of the sets. In all other matches, all set wins were 6-2 or better. Really dominant performance by her and she is now headed to play ITF junior tournaments in Europe in clay season and got some high hopes from here after this performance.

However, our #2 and #3 were just not good enough. Maybe we had some better options who were selected. Cannot say for sure as none other than Shruti were ranked in top 500 in ITF junior, so cannot definitively say that were better than Niyati and Riya who were selected. Maybe they should have had some trials to select the team.

Missing out to world group after coming so close is bad.

[jayakris]

Except for the missed experience for a couple of players to go to the world top-16 and meet a few top players from the world, this is probably fair. Without even a decent second player to win a doubles match with Shruti against anybody good, we would have been dead-meat and finishing dead last there.

Unlike in the past cases where we missed out like this, I am actually happier this time that we finally have at least one world-class player. Have really not had one for quite some time. Shruti looks like an excellent prospect.

[sameerph]

True, Jay and it it not that we had anyone who we could have selected ahead of Niyati/Riya and fared much better going at least by ITF junior rankings. The only player who could have been selected is Tajaswi Dabas who is listed as 13 but heard that she had some issues (maybe injury, maybe something else). After that next eligible player was ranked below 600. So, maybe better than Niyati/Riya who were ranked below 900 or maybe not as rankings that low do not make much difference. In any case, none were good enough to get wins at world group level.

So, it was only Shruti and she would get that good competition in J1/J2 tournaments where she is listed in compete in Europe in next few weeks.

[suresh]

Shruti appears to be a really good talent. We need more players like Shruti desperately. Shruti's glasses make her look nerdish and seem to hide her super game.

[jayakris]

Shruti is from a wrestler family (grandfather and father in national team and all). From Jhajjar, Haryana. That means wrestler country. You can see that she actually has a bit of a wrestler build too. What the heck is this wrestler girl doing in tennis, huh? ... Bespectacled wrestler nerd tennis star! I am really upbeat. It has been a while since we got some good news on some junior talent. Sahaja at the young senior level was good news too.

[arjun2761]

I think Sumit Nagal is also from there, so there is some tennis pedigree from there as well!

[sameerph]

This week our junior under 16 davis cup team is playing. Our #1 Rushil Khosla and # Bushan Haobam are there. #2 Manas Dhamane is not in the team.

In group stage, we beat Pakistan 3-0 in first match and got a walkover against Indonesia today.

So, we are thru to QF. But, important final group stage match coming up against Australia tomorrow to see who tops the group. Australia has 1 top 100 player in Hayden Jones and another one from top 300. So, they will be tough.

[sameerph]

We lost to Austrlia 1-2. Both Bushan and Rushil lost in straight sets against higher ranked Australian opponents but at least they salvaged a win in doubles.

Anyway, we finish second in group. But, surprisingly we get Iran in QF. Iran looked to be in relatively weaker group but did beat Singapore, Malyasia and Syria in group stage. Thier both boys are ranked in 400's but they won their matches easily they might be underranked. So, we have a task on hand. Iran have been unbeatable against us in Volleyball and wrestling, And started beating us in Kabaddi too and started getting better than us in shooting. Hope that does not extend to Tennis now.

[jayakris]

Iran have been unbeatable against us in Volleyball and wrestling, And started beating us in Kabaddi too and started getting better than us in shooting. Hope that does not extend to Tennis now.

But you know, it probably will