European Challengers 2018

[Omkara]

On slow surface ram gets more time to cover his backhand. Or to stay that on clay his back hand is less of a liability

[Rajiv]

Ram at a career high of 130 in live rankings.

[sameerph]

Perhaps his sliced backhand is more effective on clay. We cannot say for sure because he has not had much success at challenger level on European clay earlier. I think this his first challenger QF on European red clay.

[VReddy]

Perhaps his sliced backhand is more effective on clay. We cannot say for sure because he has not had much success at challenger level on European clay earlier. I think this his first challenger QF on European red clay.

Precisely - he is a much improved player. Around this time last year, he was predominately a futures player with limited success on the challengers. So not like Backhand had a difference then.

I bet if Ram plays on the hard card challengers, he would have similar performances there too. I feel if he plays mostly on the Challengers, he might not have any major jump in his rankings but I think it will enable him to get that solid foundation to move up to the ATP Tour world from around mid-next year.

[Rajiv]

The scoreline is deceptive and eventually it was a close match with many games going to 9 or 10 points.
Ram' s serve was also on song and Sumit too was not far behind and was hitting and playing some spectacular shots
And such is a hard life of a Tennis Pro, after the match Ram while talking to me and he was already training on the bycycle in the Gym preparing for his doubles in few hours. Trials and Tribulations of a pro circuit player,not enough time to relax,no time to savour a win.

[VReddy]

The scoreline is deceptive and eventually it was a close match with many games going to 9 or 10 points.
Ram' s serve was also on song and Sumit too was not far behind and was hitting and playing some spectacular shots
And such is a hard life of a Tennis Pro, after the match Ram while talking to me and he was already training on the bycycle in the Gym preparing for his doubles in few hours. Trials and Tribulations of a pro circuit player,not enough time to relax,no time to savour a win.

Curious - What prompted the doubles entry? Cushion against an early loss and ensure he got more match practice on clay?

[sameerph]

Thanks, Rajeev for getting the first hand account from RamK. Yes, felt that he should have skipped the doubles this week.

Around this time last year, he was predominately a futures player with limited success on the challengers. So not like Backhand had a difference then.

I think from last year he started having good success on challenger tour. Such year wise splits are not available on ATP site directly. So, need to check to confirm but I am sure his winning % on challenger tour went drastically up last year compared to year before.

His overall career win % is 44% on challenger tour. But, I am sure it must have been even lower till 2016.

[PKBasu]

Good to see our #2 moving further up in the rankings, with the #3 not far behind. They should revel in the clay season ahead.

[VReddy]

Thanks, Rajeev for getting the first hand account from RamK. Yes, felt that he should have skipped the doubles this week.

Around this time last year, he was predominately a futures player with limited success on the challengers. So not like Backhand had a difference then.

I think from last year he started having good success on challenger tour. Such year wise splits are not available on ATP site directly. So, need to check to confirm but I am sure his winning % on challenger tour went drastically up last year compared to year before.

His overall career win % is 44% on challenger tour. But, I am sure it must have been even lower till 2016.

Yes - thats my point. He really established himself on the challenger tour from like April 2017 - before that he wasn't really stabilized on the challenger tour.

Sameer - this site has a good splitup for these kind of stats: https://www.coretennis.net/tennis-playe ... stats.html

[sameerph]

Thanks, Vishnu. Yes, that seems very useful site . As we can see, RamK was at around 40% success at challenger level from 2014 to 2016 which went up to 50% in 2017.

I think 40% success rate in prior years too was maintained with deep runs in 1-2 tournaments. So, he had to mix in futures with challengers to maintain his ranking.

From mid 2017 his level has clearly gone up. I think if he plays challengers regularly this year, he can take his success rate at challenger level up to 55-58 % try to get close to Yuki's level ( who has around 63 % success rate at challenger level).

That way he can get a lot of quality matches and with confidence of having stabilised at this level can try to move more to ATP tour level next year.

[jaydeep]

A superb confident win by RamK against Sumit ... Happy to see that he has rediscovered form before our important Davis cup tie against China ... Go RamK

[jaydeep]

Next, he is facing top-100 Italian Marco Cecchinato.

[QF] Ramkumar Ramanathan (IND,136) vs (3) Marco Cecchinato (ITA,97)

[jaydeep]

RamK and Lopez Perez scored a hard fought win in almost two hours over experienced Rosol and Begemann ... In the match tie-break, they were behind from the start from 4-7 down they won 6 points from next 7 for a win.

At $50K+H Marbella Challenger 2018, Spain

[QF] Enrique Lopez Perez (ESP)/ Ramkumar Ramanathan (IND) bt Andre Begemann (GER)/ Lukas Rosol (CZE) 76(5) 67(4) 10-8

[kishash]

Ramk"s 97th ranked opponent has had recent wins over robredo and bolleli. Tough match but as usual Ramk will surprise us, I am sure. All the best

[sameerph]

Cecchinato won a challenger on clay a couple of weeks back in South America and has also won the only match he played against RamK in Todd challenger in Italy in straight sets. So, he will be the favorite in tomorrow's match.