Asian challengers - Feb-Mar 2018

[bujilover]

Balaji continues to venture for success in the challenger circuit for the 5th straight week. He is in the qualifying draw at Qujing. His partnership with Uchiyama and Rungkat did not go well the past 2 weeks. Wonder who he will be partnering with, now that Prajnesh and Saketh (if he decides to show up) joins him.

EDIT: Saketh has obviously withdrawn.

[Rajiv]

At the Quijing Balaji prevails in straight sets 6-3,7-5 over the 6',9" Swedish giant to move in the FQR and faces the 1908 ranked Rui Wang for a place in the MD , On paper looks an easy match , but the lower ranked Chinese took out the 6th seeded Australian in his opening round , so should be wary as the Chinese at home are ever so dangerous.

[jaydeep]

Prajnesh is in the main draw and facing Italian Pellegrino.

At $75K Qujing Challenger 2018, China

[Q1] N.Sriram Balaji (IND,459) bt Andreas Siljestrom (SWE,UNR) 63 75

[Q2] N.Sriram Balaji (IND,459) vs Rui-Xuan Wang (CHN,1908)

[R1] Prajnesh Gunneswaran (IND,235) vs Andrea Pellegrino (ITA,353)

[jaydeep]

Bala qualified for the main draw with a comfortable win over local player ... In the main draw, he is facing another local challenge of experienced Zhe Li ... This week in the doubles, he is partnering Prajnesh and facing 4th seed Spanish-Chinese combination.

At $75K Qujing Challenger 2018, China

[Q2] N.Sriram Balaji (IND,459) bt Rui-Xuan Wang (CHN,1908) 63 62

[R1] (Q) N.Sriram Balaji (IND,459) vs Zhe Li (CHN,327)

Doubles
[R1] N. Sriram Balaji (IND)/ Prajnesh Gunneswaran (IND) vs (4) Gerard Granollers (ESP)/ Zhe Li (CHN)

[Rajiv]

Balaji continues his battle with 327 ranked Zhe Li in singles as well , where they will meet in R1.
Prajnesh in the meanwhile up against 353rd ranked Italian Andrea Pellegrino.
Both of them won't be playing their opening rounds until Tuesday.

[Rajiv]

Balaji down a set and 3 all in the second set.
Prajnesh back to his Rohit Sharma ways (scoring only after 10+ failed attempts and one flurry to stay in team ) , goes down n the First round to 354 ranked Italian in straight sets 5&2

[Rajiv]

Bala fights back and takes the second set 6-4 , but unfortunately in the opening game of the decider lost his serve and is down a break and 0-2.
Hope he can turn things around in the final set.

[meyyis]

Bala loses the final set 6-1. On to the doubles now. He needs to get back to winning ways and have a strong show this week, since he has been losing points scoring opportunities after Vishnu had taken the break.

[meyyis]

Doubles
[R1] N. Sriram Balaji (IND)/ Prajnesh Gunneswaran (IND) l. (4) Gerard Granollers (ESP)/ Zhe Li (CHN) : 3-6, 6-7

The lengthy singles first round might have had a toll as Balaji/Prajnesh lost their doubles first round to Gerard Granollers and Zhe Li (who incidentally seem to have had more stamina in the bank, after having to go through the long first round win over Balaji)

Another tournament for Balaji ending in defeat sooner, in his current tryst with different set of partners. When is Vishnu expected to be back?

[sameerph]

Did not expect much in singles from Balaji against a Chinese veteran playing at home. But, really disappointing loss for Prajnesh. His Italian opponent had lost in qualifying in last 2 weeks. So, this was as easy a match that you can get for first round at challenger level. How did Prajnesh lose this match ? He was up 5-2 up in the first set and lost 5 straight games to lose that set and got outplayed in second set too. Was it a jet lag coming in from India over the week end.

Anyway, now he will go down to around 260 in the rankings and will have try to build it back 20-30 spots thru April to make it to FO qualifying draw.

[PKBasu]

Shocking defeat for Prajnesh, and a miserable day for us in China, with a loss even in doubles