ATP / WTA Grass tournaments 2018 (DenBosch/Stuttgart, Queens/Halle, Antalya, Newport)

[kishash]

yes beating any of the four opponents will boost his confidence, I think he is now due for a good run at an important tournament and i hope this is it

[PKBasu]

What a glorious grass season this has been for us. As so many have noticed, the grass tournaments are far more intense and competitive than others on the regular or Challenger tour because of the compact nature of the grass season -- and the preponderance of grass specialists in these tournaments. Yet, we have seen Prajnesh beat Shapovalov (after qualifying in) at the Stuttgart ATP, and now Yuki has beaten #67 Taylor Fritz to make the main draw at the exclusive Queen's Club championship in London. And Ramkumar has chosen to play the tough Challengers rather than ATP qualifiers (despite his big win last year over Thiem at Antalya), but has notched up good wins over Jordan Thompson (#91), and good grass-courters like Tobias Kamke and Jason Jung.
The victories just keep piling up. Three cheers to grass courts!

[S_K_S]

Now Yuki decides that he is going to play some serious matches! What got into him?... Maybe feeling physically better? Terrific. Go Yuki...

According to the post shared by Yuki "he overcame significant pain".

https://twitter.com/yukibhambri/status/ ... 19936?s=19

[PKBasu]

€2.12m Fever-Tree Championship, Queen's Club, London

[R1] Yuki Bhambri (IND, 83) vs. Milos Raonic (CAN, 31)


A very tough assignment indeed for Yuki against the 2016 Wimbledon finalist, which eventually took him to #3 in the world by November 2016. Last year, Raonic lost to Federer in the Wimbledon QF (as the latter avenged his 2016 SF loss), but there is no doubt about Raonic's abilities on grass. Everything will depend on Yuki's ability to return Raonic's serve, which is even more potent on grass.

[VReddy]

With that he recovers half of his TOPS income that he lost.

Omkara, Suresh: The TOPS scheme is more than the Rs 50,000 that we often seem to be under the impression here. Rs 50,000 is just the monthly out-of-pocket expenses for which you need not submit any bills.

There is a lumpsum funding too.. For example, Rohan got about Rs 60 lakhs.. Leander/Prarthana about Rs 25 lakhs each and so on. I am not able to get recent data (if any of you have, please share), otherwise will probably try to get this data through the RTI act.

Historic data via Lok Sabha QnA for reference: http://164.100.47.190/loksabhaquestions ... /AS158.pdf

[Omkara]

With that he recovers half of his TOPS income that he lost.

Omkara, Suresh: The TOPS scheme is more than the Rs 50,000 that we often seem to be under the impression here. Rs 50,000 is just the monthly out-of-pocket expenses for which you need not submit any bills.

There is a lumpsum funding too.. For example, Rohan got about Rs 60 lakhs.. Leander/Prarthana about Rs 25 lakhs each and so on. I am not able to get recent data (if any of you have, please share), otherwise will probably try to get this data through the RTI act.

Historic data via Lok Sabha QnA for reference: http://164.100.47.190/loksabhaquestions ... /AS158.pdf

I assumed 25 lakhs to be tops income. If anything more he will get way more simply by playing R1 of US Open.

[VReddy]

Thats true. I think its more like he is breaking-even now thanks to Grand Slams by having either a trainer or coach travel with him - atleast that what Mr Koon told me). Every additional stream of money will help him to build a team around him and not think of money coming in + going out all the time. Rs 20-40 lakhs might go a long way towards say covering 20-35% of the expenses towards having an additional person travel with him.

That could make all the difference between being Top-60/50 vs a Top-30 player. Rohan emphasized this a lot too when he shared the Vienna example with me for an interview.

[jaydeep]

An impressive win over Fritz by Yuki to qualify for the main-draw, but a really tough draw for Yuki against in-form Milos Raonic ... Hoping for a good outing for Yuki gaining much required experience against real grass court specialist before Wimbledon.

[VReddy]

Omkara, Suresh: The TOPS scheme is more than the Rs 50,000 that we often seem to be under the impression here. Rs 50,000 is just the monthly out-of-pocket expenses for which you need not submit any bills.

There is a lumpsum funding too.. For example, Rohan got about Rs 60 lakhs.. Leander/Prarthana about Rs 25 lakhs each and so on. I am not able to get recent data (if any of you have, please share), otherwise will probably try to get this data through the RTI act.

Historic data via Lok Sabha QnA for reference: http://164.100.47.190/loksabhaquestions ... /AS158.pdf

I assumed 25 lakhs to be tops income. If anything more he will get way more simply by playing R1 of US Open.

To bring closure on my point about TOPS funding. I didn't get TOPS funding detail but I was able to NSDF funding from the Lok Sabha and out of all the people, it is an MP from Vijayawada who asked this question!

Some details here: http://164.100.47.190/loksabhaquestions ... AU2248.pdf

Unfortunately, the details were shared at the granularity of Sport as the unit for beneficiary. Would love to get this data at player/team level.

[Omkara]

€2.12m Fever-Tree Championship, Queen's Club, London

[R1] Yuki Bhambri (IND, 83) vs. Milos Raonic (CAN, 31)


A very tough assignment indeed for Yuki against the 2016 Wimbledon finalist, which eventually took him to #3 in the world by November 2016. Last year, Raonic lost to Federer in the Wimbledon QF (as the latter avenged his 2016 SF loss), but there is no doubt about Raonic's abilities on grass. Everything will depend on Yuki's ability to return Raonic's serve, which is even more potent on grass.

Mexico beat Germany. Yuki will Raonic. So what I am down a few!!

[prashanthm]

Yuki's return stats were very good against Fritz, making me believe that he's in very good return form. But Raonic is in a completely different league...

[suresh]

Omkara, Suresh: The TOPS scheme is more than the Rs 50,000 that we often seem to be under the impression here. Rs 50,000 is just the monthly out-of-pocket expenses for which you need not submit any bills.

There is a lumpsum funding too.. For example, Rohan got about Rs 60 lakhs.. Leander/Prarthana about Rs 25 lakhs each and so on. I am not able to get recent data (if any of you have, please share), otherwise will probably try to get this data through the RTI act.

Historic data via Lok Sabha QnA for reference: http://164.100.47.190/loksabhaquestions ... /AS158.pdf

Vishnu: Thanks for the clarification. I also suspect that Yuki will be back after the Asiad. It appears that there is a fixed number for tennis -- correct me if I am wrong on this. So including Divij would mean removing another player.

[prasen9]

I hope Yuki goes deep. I find Yuki's career to be somewhat joyless than even say Prakash Amritraj's. It may be that I had much higher expectations from Yuki and hence the disappointment. But, I also always cared for the highs. Prakash made the finals of an ATP tournament (Newport) if I recall correctly. Yuki has had four GS first round appearances but no such highs. The career high is good but I hope he gives us some ATP tournament wins where at least he goes deep if not reaching a final.

[Omkara]

While P$ did give us the high of a ATP final but for rest of the time he played like 200-300 ranked player. Yuki whenever fit gave us enough to cheer. His frequent injuries lead to the disappointments.

He hasn't played enough of the low key ATP tournaments. Hope he does so and playes well there.

[sameerph]

True. Prakash did make the Newport final in 2008 but he beat only 1 top 100 player on the way i.e 99th ranked Frank Dancevic. I am sure if Yuki gets that kind of field in an ATP tournament he too should make it to the end. Yuki did make an ATP QF in Washigton last year.

But, I do hope that this year he at least makes it to the SF to one of the ATP tournaments. But, I think it is more likely on hard courts than on grass.