$50K(+H) Chennai Challenger, 12-18 Feb. 2018

[sameerph]

[R1] (WC) Nitin Kumar Sinha (IND,1132) l. Lucas Catarina (MON,365) 36 46

[R1] (WC) N. Vijay Sundar Prashanth (IND,524) l. (3) Duckhee Lee (KOR,207) 36 46

First time I saw Nitin Kumar Sinha play. Overall his game looks pretty good. No major weaknesses, both forehand and backhand good, first serve is decent. He seems to have a very good second serve - won 69% points on second serve and good mobility around the court. Perhaps will need to add some weapons to succeed at this level but than he was playing a very good player today - 21 year old who has won 3 futures title last year. So, decent performance by Nitin in his first match at this level.

[sameerph]

Sumit lost the first set 3-6.

[Saniapower]

Sumit has not been serious with his tennis for last couple of months.

[meyyis]

Sumit lost the match in straight sets.

[R1] (5) Sumit Nagal (IND,220) l. Antoine Escoffier (FRA,371) : 3-6, 3-6

[sameerph]

Disappointing loss. I watched parts of the match. Escoffier was playing at a pretty good level and serving/ stroking big but Sumit was making lots of unforced errors which also contributed to the loss. Was just not playing his usual self.

[meyyis]

On the doubles front, results so far

(1) Ratiwatana/Ratiwatana d. Sood/Sood : 6-0, 6-3
Cacic/Nedelko v (wc)Anand/Bendre
(3)Granollers/Uchiyama v Ilkel/Petrovic
Gunneswaran/Prashanth v (wc)Kadhe/Suresh

Martinez/Nagal v Altuna/Safwat
(wc)Kalyanpur/Mukund l. (4)Margaroli/Myneni : 4-6, 3-6
Bega/Coppejans v Catarina/Purcell
Popko/Zapata Miralles l. (2)Balaji/Vardhan : 6-7, 1-6

[prasen9]

Sumit has not been serious with his tennis for last couple of months.

What happened to him?

[PKBasu]

Disappointing loss. I watched parts of the match. Escoffier was playing at a pretty good level and serving/ stroking big but Sumit was making lots of unforced errors which also contributed to the loss. Was just not playing his usual self.

Sumit seems to be rather inconsistent. He seems to play low-percentage, punishing tennis (a la Nadal, albeit not quite at Rafa's level of consistency and power). So, when his game is off, he is terrible. When it is on (as it was in the Bangalore Challenger), he is unbeatable. I presume one of his goals for this year is to ensure that his match play isn't this hot and cold - and that he can become more consistent.

[sameerph]

Also, he seems to take some time to get used to the surface and seems to struggle in first couple of matches of most of the tournaments. At challenger level you do not get easy matches even in earlier rounds. Sumit may take some time to bring his futures level consistency to challenger level.

But that loss means so far we have only 2 Indians in second round. Prajnesh and Yuki are the hopes tomorrow and both of them have reasonably tough matches against Spanish players who have recent success at challenger level in India.

[arjun2761]

What is the court speed at the Chennai challenger? I believe Sumit generally has success on slower surfaces. Yuki tends to do well on the faster hard courts, so it will be interesting to see how he plays on this surface...

[sameerph]

Our poor performance at this challenger continues. Prajnesh falls to a Spaniard.

[R1] (8) Prajnesh Gunneswaran (IND,241) l. Pedro Martinez (ESP,242) 16 46

These Spaniards are so strong even on hard courts now, very solid from the back of the court as Prajnesh tried to do. Lets see what Yuki does later.

[PKBasu]

Yuki won the first set 6-1, but is struggling in the second. He just saved a break point, and held (with an ace after one deuce) to make it 4-5 in the second set. Opponent will serve for the set now.

[nitin28]

Yuki won the first set easily 6-1 breaking spaniard 3 times, in second set also he had 3 BP's in 2nd game but could not convert and spaniard found his range and broke yuki and is now serving for set at 5-4 and he missed 3 more breaking opportunities, 1 more BP wasted again
1 more BP 8th in this set, and he converts this time to level the set 5-5

[PKBasu]

Zapata Mirall has a very big serve, but Yuki's service returns are superb too -- so he took a 0-40 lead (3 BPs), Zapata managed to fight back to Deuce, it was AD-Bhambri three times before Yuki finished it. 5-5 in the second set.
Yuki holds easily with some excellent play (including one ace). 6-5.

[PKBasu]

Zapata Mirall holds at 30. He was up 40-0 with some big serving, then had a DF, Yuki played a good point, but then an UFE ended it. 6-6