European Challengers 2018

[sameerph]

Yes, all over. From 2-2 in the second set till being 1-4 double break down in the third, Sumit played some really bad tennis making tons of unforced errors wining only 2 out of next 10 games. Tried to stage a comeback and got 1 break back but it was a bit too much mountain to climb from thereon with Cachin serving big and playing pretty well now. Fell short in the end.

[Rajiv]

After the first set,Sumeet's game just felt apart and made countless errors, had he even reduced those errors by half , he would have had a fair winning chance

The line up for this challenger is so formidable that the MTF guys are comparing it to a ATP 250, and a just short while ago Ram' s doubles partner took out Dustin Brown in straight sets

[jaydeep]

Bad loss but Sumit has got chance as a lucky loser ... He is having a tough match against top-130 Spaniard Granollers.

[R1] (LL) Sumit Nagal (IND,218) vs (8) Marcel Granollers (ESP,131)

[PKBasu]

Just the type of match that an in-form Sumit can win, against an ageing veteran.

[jaydeep]

RamK and his partner Lopez Perez scored a superb comeback win over highly ranked opponents in the match tie-break.

[R1] Enrique Lopez Perez (ESP)/ Ramkumar Ramanathan (IND) bt (2) Roman Jebavy (CZE)/ Antonio Sancic (CRO) 36 64 10-8

[sameerph]

Oh, Sumit gets lucky. So, the only thing he misses out is 3 points from qualifying.He will have to play much better than today if he wants to win against Granollers.

And RamK gets a very good doubles win which should give him some confidence for his tomorrow's singles match.

RamK's and Sumit's matches are third and fourth on court 2 tomorrow. Unfortunately that court does not seem to be streamed.

[sameerph]

RamK is up an early break 3-1 in the first set against Giannessi.

And RamK kept that advantage to take the first set 6-4. He is better in all the stats at the moment and hope he keeps it up in second set.

[sameerph]

RamK got broken for 1-3 in the second set.

But, he broke right back for 2-3.

RamK got broken again and lost the second set 3-6.

Only 50% points won on first serve by RamK in this set against 88% in first set. That is the status which is making the difference. Rest of the stats are pretty much the same as first set.

[sameerph]

RamK is up 5-2 in the third set.

[sameerph]

And RamK closes it out in third set.

At $50K+H Marbella Challenger 2018, Spain

[R1] Ramkumar Ramanathan (IND,136) d. Alessandro Giannessi (ITA,161) 64 36 63

[Rajiv]

With an effortless transition  Ram once again exhibits his all surface prowess 

Clay is the most difficult surface to aclimatlise ,where the key word is balance and planting your weight correctly. 

And without any Clay tournament play so far this year and facing an experienced clay courter who has played all his 5 tournaments of this year on clay (AO being the only non clay where he beat Sumit) and in the process the Italian had reached qtrs of an ATP and a challenger semi

All of this just shows how quickly Ram adapts to the changes and applies them so comendably even against fancied opponent(whom even the betting guys gave an edge) as seen in his R1 win

[VReddy]

With an effortless transition Ram once again exhibits his all surface prowess

Clay is the most difficult surface to aclimatlise ,where the key word is balance and planting your weight correctly.

And without any Clay tournament play so far this year and facing an experienced clay courter who has played all his 5 tournaments of this year on clay (AO being the only non clay where he beat Sumit) and in the process the Italian had reached qtrs of an ATP and a challenger semi

All of this just shows how quickly Ram adapts to the changes and applies them so comendably even against fancied opponent(whom even the betting guys gave an edge) as seen in his R1 win

Great stuff indeed. I so wanted Ram to move back to Clay Courts as I thought he was getting into the habit of serve/volley too much by playing in the US. I expected that it would take couple of weeks before he gets back into the groove again but this is really good. I also hope Ram sticks to playing mostly in Challengers this year (tougher ones) before slowly looking into the transition to ATP 250 next year based on the performance this year. I felt otherwise the transition from Futures -> Challengers -> ATP WordlTour Qualifiers was happening a bit too fast for him.

Hopefully Ram will be up against Sumit in the 2nd round.

[S_K_S]

Sumit is 4-3 on serve but that is misleading as there have been 4 breaks already

[Rajiv]

True Vishnu, he should mix big challengers with 250's and have put across him whenever we talk.
How I wished if only he had played couple of challengers in US, would have easily defended those big points which are coming up soon

[sameerph]

Sumit is 4-3 on serve but that is misleading as there have been 4 breaks already

Sumit breaks Granollers for the third time in the set to take the first set 6-4.