Kazakh/Uzbek Challengers, June 2018

[Ravishankar Krishnan]

Saki plays Ilkel tomorrow. Ilkel has played a lot in Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan and has done pretty decently, winning a Futures and reaching the SF at Kashi (where he defeated Sasi, among others). Will be a tough one for Saki. Good luck, Saki

[suresh]

So Ilkel won the match. It was a dog fight and must have taken quite a bit out of Ilkel. I thought that the Portuguese would be a harder matchup for Saki with compact strokeplay. So I am happy that Saki is playing Ilkel.

[sameerph]

If Saketh can stay fit, we should have 5 Indians playing in the US Open qualifiers this year (4 men, 1 woman; plus one man in the main draw; possibly 2 in the main draw and 3 in the qualifiers). But it is an uphill climb. Now at 387 in the live rankings, Saketh could rise to 292 if he wins 3 more matches here (but that would mean a total of 8 singles matches this week, plus doubles). Too much workload for a guy returning from injury, with a body that is still fragile.

US Open is out of the picture anyway, thanks to the Asian Games. Hope your prediction comes true for the Australian Open.

Saketh is not part of Asian games. So, US open qualies is still not out of way for him. But, I think it will be tough for him to make a jump inside top 250 in little more than a month to make the cut.

If Saketh is not in top 250 but is in top 200 level form, it would be a good idea to pick him for Asian games and release one of RamK/Prajnesh/Sumit to play US open qualies.

[VReddy]

If Saketh is not in top 250 but is in top 200 level form, it would be a good idea to pick him for Asian games and release one of RamK/Prajnesh/Sumit to play US open qualies.

Very good point.

Re: Previous point. I meant for the 4-5 Indians in US open perspective (not just Saki)

[sameerph]

Oh, Ok. This year's US open qualies is going be barren for us unless AITA releases at least 1 of the singles players from the team which is very much possible.

Btw, our challenger in womens singles event ended today.

At $25K ITF Women, Fergana,Uzbekistan

[R2] (7) Rutuja BHOSALE (IND,428) l. Anastasia FROLOVA (RUS,512) 26 36

[Ravishankar Krishnan]

Saki up 5-1 now! And from the few glimpses of the match I had, he's playing top 200 level

After a duece, holds his serve and wins the set 6-1! C'mon Saki!

[Ravishankar Krishnan]

He loses the second set 6-7 (5). He was up a mini break and serving at 5-4 in the TB, but lost both the points off his serve

[VReddy]

I think its difficult from now on - as the second set wore on, he looks more and more tired. Hoping for the best in the 3rd set but it appears to be super warm out there, so looks difficult.

[sameerph]

He had a break point at 4-4 and 3 more at 5-5 but missed all of them and lost 3 straight points from 5-4 up in the tie break. Missed opportunities to close the match. Lets see if he has enough left in the tank now for third set.

[Ravishankar Krishnan]

He broke Ilkel and was serving at 5-3 for the match. But got broken . Back on serve at 5-4 now. This is the first time he got broken in the entire match. What a time for it to happen. But guess what he breaks Ilkel again at 4-5 to win the match. This is brilliant stuff from Saki! Now he has another doubles match today. Poor chap! He's played a lot of tennis over the past week.

[meyyis]

Saketh Myneni next faces the top seed Serbian Milojevic in the Semi Final. Milojevic also needed 3 sets to win his QF encounter (with a similar scoreline to Saki - 6-1, 6-7, 6-3) but played a longer match for 2 hrs and 27 misn compared to Saki's 1 hr and 48 min match. Saki in the company of VSP, still has to play his Doubles SF later in the day today.

[meyyis]

With his QF win, Saki now vaults over Sasi kumar Mukund and Arjun Khade to reach 362 in the Live rankings and become Ind-5.

[VReddy]

Phenomenal win though.. 33 degree heat in a mountain region which would make it feel like 37-40 degrees. Man he is really stretching himself with so much tennis in such weather.

[PKBasu]

Saketh/VSP won the first set of their SF 76(5), but had to save several set points when serving at 4-5 in the second. They saved them all and it’s 6-5 after the opponents won the next game after one Deuce.

[PKBasu]

Saketh/VSP through to the final with a 76(5) 76(1) win.