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

[Sin Hombre]

I enjoyed watching Yuki's wins over Monfils and Pouille as well as the close losses to KAndy and Querrey just in the last 12 months. If he stays fit into the HC season, I am certain we will have a lot more of those wins to enjoy (and just the fact that an Indian singles player is featuring on the main tennis channel again!)

Of course, at the same time, he has disappointed relative to earlier expectations.

Newport is about the same level as one of the stronger challengers and has been the weakest ATP main draw tournament for years now. There is a reason why Rajeev Ram has won it multiple times.

[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

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.

I am not sure about the quota part. I think if you are eligible for an olympic spot, you make the cut irrespective. The recent inclusion of AG/CWG has made me confused on the overall policy.

Filing an application and following up in person is a bit difficult without being in India but I'll followup with couple of orgs like Factly.in and see if I can get it done - I am curious myself. Hopefully, I can get some data in 2-4 months.

[jaydeep]

Rohan and Edouard started with straight sets win over Anderson and Benneteau.

At €1.98M Queen's Open 2018, London, Great Britain

[R1] Rohan Bopanna (IND)/ Edouard Roger-Vasselin (FRA) bt Kevin Anderson (RSA)/ Julien Benneteau (FRA) 63 76(3)

[PKBasu]

Yuki's R1 match against Raonic is at 12:30pm tomorrow on Court 1.
All Centre Court matches are being telecast live here, but sadly Yuki won't be on Centre Court.

Just saw Querrey beat Jay Clarke 63 63. Given the set Yuki took off Querrey at Indian Wells, perhaps he can shake up Raonic tomorrow too. Go Yuki!

[PKBasu]

As for the supposed "highs" we got from Prakash Amritraj, they were nothing compared to what Yuki, Ramkumar and Prajnesh have given us in the past 12 months. Prakash had one fortuitous "win" over Safin (when the latter conceded halfway through the first set), and he made the final at Newport once. But Yuki has made R3 at Indian Wells and R2 at Miami this year (after qualifying in, not getting wildcards and other freebies) -- both Masters tournaments. Yuki also beat #10 Lucas Pouille at a Masters (IW) and #21 (ex-top-10er) Gael Monfils enroute to the QF (Washington, DC). Ramkumar made R2 at the Cincinnati Masters (after qualifying in) and beat #6 Dominic Thiem on the way to the QF (Antalya). Prajnesh has beaten #21 Denis Shapovalov (after qualifying in) at Stuttgart.

These are on a completely different plane from anything Prakash Amritraj came close to achieving, despite his stream of wildcards and other helping hands. Leander Paes was the last singles player who gave us the occasional thrill to surpass what our current trio is giving us. There can be few thrills to surpass the Olympic singles bronze medal, or the victory over Sampras in Connecticut. But this trio has given us some very fine high points in the past 12 months -- and are very well positioned to provide us the ultimate thrill of having THREE players simultaneously in the top-100 before the USO (and definitely, three in the top-150 soon after Wimbledon).

[arjun2761]

Yes, we live in hope! However, IW was a relatively slow court which blunted the edge of the bigger servers which wont be the case here. The best hope for Yuki would be if Raonic is a little off his game after his run to the final last week although as a former top-10 player he may be used to going deep in consecutive weeks.

Also, IW and Miami were the best I've seen Yuki play in his career - his back court game and service return game was at it's best with full power on his ground strokes as well as playing patiently (by his standards anyway) to work and win points.

Based on the Impact Academy website about playing through pain, it looks to me he picked up something (or perhaps aggravated his elbow injury) and hasn't played as well since. In the challenger that he played and won, he played with seemingly 80% of his normal power and was content to let his opponents make mistakes which his challenger level opponents obliged by making mistakes. Alternatively, in the match against Zhe Zhang, he tried to shorten points prematurely to lose to a challenger journeyman. Looks like in his current playing level, he is capable of beating the better challenger players but is struggling against solid ATP level opponents.

[PKBasu]

Fitness level (ie, how injury-free he is) probably matters more than surface speed. Yuki did well at Washington DC last year, and it was attributed to the court being faster. He did well at Indian Wells, and we are attributing that to the slow speed of the court!
Let me throw in another theory: Yuki’s forehand is more effective on a low-bouncing surface like grass. Perhaps his service return too, although we’ll have to see if that applies to the truly big servers like Raonic (and Karlovic or Isner).

[PKBasu]

In the Race (to London) rankings, there are now three Indians in the top-125: Yuki at 56, Ramkumar at 117 and Prajnesh at 123.

[Sin Hombre]

Sumit, on the other hand, only has 33 points in the entirety of the calendar year.

Saketh actually already looks like he is playing top-250 tennis but has played so little

[Omkara]

As seen from comeback by Harsh and Somdev, post injury return can be tough. Let Saki take his own sweet time.

[sameerph]

Based on the Impact Academy website about playing through pain, it looks to me he picked up something (or perhaps aggravated his elbow injury) and hasn't played as well since.

In the last match against Medvedev, it was a knee injury seems to have affected him and he also took a medical time out for that. So, this seems to be a new injury that he has picked up. He has no option but to play thru it till Wimbedon after which he can take 3-4 weeks rest before starting US hard court season.

[PKBasu]

If he was able to play through that injury/niggle, and still beat Taylor Fritz here, the injury couldn't be too serious. Anyway, I hope it has healed further with the extra day of rest, and he is in fine fettle for the big match starting in less than a couple of hours, against Raonic.

[sanjay5goel]

Any links to watch this match?

[vatsal323]

Any links to watch this match?

http://videostream.dn.ua/videopage/vide ... cation=ufi

[sameerph]

Somehow that site does not work for me these days. Please post if there is any other link for watching live.