Australian Open 2018

[bujilover]

Balaji is not in the Q draw which means he might have moved to MD with someone’s withdrawal.

Vishnu has also qualified with a BYE in his Q round. So we have Sumit, Balaji and Vishnu in the main draw.

[vatsal323]

I think Sumit has a very bright chance of qualifying. The only that might trouble him would be Balaji, against whom Sumit has struggled a bit in the past. But Sumit is a much improved player now. So let's see!

[arjun2761]

Hopefully, Sumit's breakthrough performance continues in the wild card challenge. A direct entry to the Australian Open would be great although playing the AO qualies is fine as well as there are additional points for qualifying in.

Previously, he didn't have much success at the challenger level with all 6 of his challenger level wins this year coming in the 2 weeks of the Indian challengers. Last year, he played the same 2 challengers in India and won a round each and he also had some tough matches in European challengers while qualifying in and playing tough in the main draw without much success at the challenger main draw level.

[Sin Hombre]

I am not as optimistic as vatsal about Sumit's chances of winning the playoff this week. There has been a lot of sketchy linecalling in these in previous instances and I think that will be a bridge too far for Sumit (and that he had no history prior to last week of beating 4 CH level players in a row).

Hopefully I am proven wrong.

[jayakris]

I am not as optimistic as vatsal about Sumit's chances of winning the playoff this week. There has been a lot of sketchy linecalling in these in previous instances and I think that will be a bridge too far for Sumit

Maybe you have a point. If he is going to hit the shots right inside the line with machine-accuracy, like he was hitting against Yuki, I am sure some calls will go against him there!

[Rajiv]

Following are the matches for our guys at the AO play off ,

[ 295] TPE Tsung-Hua YANG [5] v [Q 509 ]IND Vishnu VARDHAN

[350] JPN Hiroki MORIYA [8] v [355] IND N.Sriram BALAJI

[Q 618 ] UZB Jurabek KARIMOV v [321 ] IND Sumit NAGAL [6]

To reach the finals , first Sumit will have to overcome host of Chinese players , namely 4th seed Zhe Li , 2 seed Ze Zhang and the Chinese at home are always difficult opponents

[jaydeep]

To reach the finals , first Sumit will have to overcome host of Chinese players , namely 4th seed Zhe Li , 2 seed Ze Zhang and the Chinese at home are always difficult opponents

And also some dubious line calls.

[fabshab]

Tough draw i would say for sumit having drawn seeded chinese in his half
I hope he totally avoids that brushing of sidelines otherwise he might find himself being robbbed of many points
for the tournament

[sameerph]

It seems they have done the seeding as per last week's rankings. So, Sumit is seeded 6th instead of 3rd. It does not matter much in the end as he has to anyway beat everyone around to qualify for main draw.

In doubles, Jeevan and Rungkat are second seeds while Balaji and Vishnu are third seeds behind Ratiwatana brothers who are top seeds here.

Vishnu and Bala will play their singles R1 matches tomorrow. Sumit will only start on Thursday,

[PKBasu]

Yuki and RamK’s failure to enter this tournament is truly bizarre, especially since Yuki once got the doubles main draw wildcard through this event.

[Varma]

Given how suspect his body is, I can undrestand why Yuki may have avoided playing a 3rd week straight. But I am baffled of RamK's decision not to play here. The guy plays like a machine all year long; he is in the best form of his life, and this was his best chance to seal the deal for a grandslam main draw. Hard to make any sense of his decision to skip this tournament.

- Varma

[Rajiv]

Yuki and RamK’s failure to enter this tournament is truly bizarre, especially since Yuki once got the doubles main draw wildcard through this event.

I am not sure about Yuki as many a times his scheduling and next move is shrouded under a veil.
As for Ram it seems he has an unavoidable social obligation, and that seems to be the case for his no show, otherwise this event was marked in his calender

[arjun2761]

Yuki and RamK’s failure to enter this tournament is truly bizarre, especially since Yuki once got the doubles main draw wildcard through this event.

I am not sure about Yuki as many a times his scheduling and next move is shrouded under a veil.
As for Ram it seems he has an unavoidable social obligation, and that seems to be the case for his no show, otherwise this event was marked in his calender

For this instance, it's a pretty transparent veil when someone with a tennis elbow issue (which is aggravated by continuous use) skips a third week after playing 9 matches in 2 weeks. Also, qualifying into a GS isn't all bad as you get additional points for qualifying in and most qualifiers (such as Yuki) probably would not be expected to go deep in a GS main draw.

[prashanthm]

[R1] (Q) Vishnu VARDHAN (IND,509) v. (5) Tsung-Hua YANG (TPE,295) 64 57 10*

Vishnu takes the first set 6-4, but loses the second 5-7....
On to the decider now...

Update: Here is the live score link... https://tournaments.tennis.com.au/lives ... ED993E8191

[Rajiv]

Vishnu came back and took the decider 6-4 and the match to move in the second round to set up a clash against the Top Seeded Korean Soon Woo Kwon

But Balaji lost in straight sets to an experienced campaigner Japanese, Hiroki Moriya in straight sets , 7-5 , 6-0 , Score line in the second set is worrying , unless he got or was injured.