Asian Challengers - April 2018

[vatsal323]

[R1] Prajnesh Gunneswaran (IND,266) beat (LL) Hugo Grenier (FRA,386) 6-2 6-1

[R1] (Q) N. Sriram Balaji (IND,630) beat Zhe Li (CHN,333) 6-4 6-7(5) 6-4

[PKBasu]

Ramkumar really needs to learn to take breaks. He should have not played last week (having reached the final the previous week), and maximised his points in this week's bigger tournament. I am glad he has pulled out of doubles now.
Many of last week's stars have been knocked out early -- not just RamK (who was playing the 7th consecutive week, including a stressful Davis Cup campaign in tough weather conditions), but also last week's champion Halys, and Nedovyesov (who beat RamK last week) are out in R1.

[sameerph]

Yes, 4 of the 8 seeds have fallen by the wayside in first round of Anning challenger. Apart from 4th seeded RamK and 5th seeded Halys, 2nd seeded Donskoy got beaten by Chinese young gun Yibing Wu and seventh seeded Alex Bolt too fell.

These are the second round match-ups for our players -

[R2] Prajnesh Gunneswaran (IND,260) vs. Andrew Whittington (AUS,271)

[R2] (Q) N. Sriram Balaji (IND,627) vs. (8) Soon Woon Kwon (KOR,215)

[R2] (Q) Sasi Kumar Mukund (IND,516) vs. Duck Hee Lee (KOR,217)

It will be great if 2 of 3 win their matches.

[Rajiv]

This challenger seems to be a grave yard for top seeds in R1 , 2 seed Evengney Donskoy joins the growing list of casualties

[Rajiv]

Tommorrow , only Balaji and Prajnesh figure in the starting line up, while Mukund and Vishnu/ Balaji would be scheduled for Thursday.

Balaji plays the 8th seed Korean Soon Kwon at 11 am (local time) on the Centre Court , while Prajnesh plays the second match against Ram's conqueror DIck Whittington on Court 1 .

Both winnable matches especially Prajnesh and looking forward for him to seal the French quali draw in this tournament.

[Omkara]

[R1] Q-Sasi Kumar Mukund (IND, 516) d. 5-Quentin Halys (FRA, 110) 36 64 64

[R1] Prajnesh Gunneswaran (IND, 260) d. Hugo Grenier (FRA, 374) 62 61

[R1] Q-N. Sriram Balaji (IND, 627) d. Zhe Li (CHN, 329) 64 67(5) 64

Wow!!

brilliant work!

[S_K_S]

Yes, superb win against last week's champion and a player ranked close to top 100.

[R1] (Q) Sasi Kumar Mukund (IND,516) d. (5) Quentin Halys (FRA,110) 36 64 64

That is simply amazing. What a performance. Way to go Sasi

[jayakris]

Looks like we are beginning to see the next top-250 player emerge for us. Mukund!!!!.... Wow, the kid is making some strides now. Well, he could be better than top-250 but I will say that when he reaches top-300.

[PKBasu]

Yes, a very impressive series of victories for 21-year-old Sasi Kumar Mukund. This stunning victory over fellow-21-year-old and world #110 Quentin Halys (the winner of the Nanchang Challenger last week) comes after another excellent win over Luke Saville (who is 24 years old, and was ranked as high as 152 in 2015). And last week, Sasi qualified into the Nanchang Challenger, then beat #248 Ze Zhang (China's #1 player, playing in China) in R1. Terrific stuff from the youngster!

Now up to 461 in the live ATP rankings, Sasi is still quite far off from his career-high of 396, reached last October.
On his ATP profile page, Sasi is rated as a contender for the year-end ATP NextGen Finals!

[jayakris]

By the way, as Rajiv had said above, he is Mukund, so we should all stop calling him Sasi, though we have got so used to calling him Sasi. What it shows is that we follow players and become fans just based on their results - not based on who they are, who they are connected to, where they are from, or anything. We don't even read much of what others say about them... Or we would probably know that he is called Mukund, as it seems. We are the pure fans. So, GO MUKUND!!!

[I don't know him, but I just saw a Kamesh article in SportStar that calls him Mukund, so I assume that is what he is called].

[suresh]

Let's call the good player "Mukund" and the bad one "Sasi". Hope we get to see a lot of Mukund.

[jayakris]

Let's call the good player "Mukund" and the bad one "Sasi". Hope we get to see a lot of Mukund.

Haha. Deal! .... If Mukund wants us not to call him Sasi, just play well and not become his Sasi self.

[Sin Hombre]

Balaji lost the first set but up a break in the 2nd.

[Y2K]

Let's call the good player "Mukund" and the bad one "Sasi". Hope we get to see a lot of Mukund.

Haha. Deal! .... If Mukund wants us not to call him Sasi, just play well and not become his Sasi self.

[sameerph]

Balaji lost in straight sets.

[R2] (Q) N. Sriram Balaji (IND,627) l. (8) Soon Woon Kwon (KOR,215) 46 57

After losing the first set, Bala was up 3-1 in the second set but gave up that advantage. While serving at 5-5 Bala had a long argument with umpire on one point and called for tournament referee to come to court. After the restart, Bala looked more mentally disturbed by that break and made a few errors and lost his serve and then the match.