East Asian Challengers, 2019

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Re: East Asian Challengers, 2019

Post by arjun2761 »

Good to see this win for Mukund! A couple of more wins would be nice as he is adjusting to challenger level competition....
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Re: East Asian Challengers, 2019

Post by PKBasu »

[R3] 12-Sasikumar Mukund (IND, 285) d. 6-Kaichi Uchida (JPN, 256) 76(3) 62

This is on clay courts! I caught a few glimpses of the match, but Mukund was totally dominating at the end. I managed to go back and watch the first set tiebreak before the feed switched to the next match. Mukund has an impressive serve, and had much more power off his groundstrokes than his opponent. But he is erratic. Confidence seems to be the key for him: he looked a better player than his ranking, but then I may have seen the best parts of his play, when he was confident and dominating. He was more inconsistent in the first set TB, but even then he dominated it (of the 3 points his opponent won, one was off a lucky net-chord). We have an impressive young cohort in Sumit Nagal and Mukund.
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Re: East Asian Challengers, 2019

Post by PKBasu »

Mukund is the highest-ranked player in his quarter, so will play a lower-ranked player in the QF. The second seed, #175 Steven Diez, dropped out of the tournament, so was replaced by a 17th seed in that slot, so Mukund's QF opponent will be either the 15th or 17th seed. Good opportunity to advance at least to the SF.
Potential SF opponent is 30 year old Yan Bai (CHN, 222), whose ranking jumped from 350-390 a couple of months ago to his current level after he won 5 M25 Futures in the past two months (in Taiwan and China), and then reached the SF of the Chengdu Challenger.
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Re: East Asian Challengers, 2019

Post by PKBasu »

Making the later rounds of a Challenger are a great boost to the ranking. Mukund is 266 in the live rankings -- just two short of his career-high. Winning the QF will take him to 251. Winning the title would catapult him to 212!!

Sumit is at a new career-high of 173 in the live rankings, just ahead of Ramkumar at 174 (but with 7 more points than him). Saketh is at 246 (what a pity he isn't playing this week!), so Mukund is still the India #5.
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Re: East Asian Challengers, 2019

Post by PKBasu »

Mukund's good day continued with a doubles win as well, albeit over a compatriot:

[R1] Sasikumar Mukund/Teimuraz Gabashvili (IND/RUS) d. 3-Arjun Kadhe/J Fruttero (IND/USA) 63 63

Next up in the singles:

[QF] 12-Sasikumar Mukund (IND, 285) vs. 15-Harry Bourchier (AUS, 356)


That is about as easy a QF opponent as one can ever expect in a Challenger. Bourchier is a 23 year old with a career-high ranking of 349.
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Re: East Asian Challengers, 2019

Post by arjun2761 »

PKBasu wrote: Thu Aug 29, 2019 5:35 am [R3] 12-Sasikumar Mukund (IND, 285) d. 6-Kaichi Uchida (JPN, 256) 76(3) 62

This is on clay courts! I caught a few glimpses of the match, but Mukund was totally dominating at the end. I managed to go back and watch the first set tiebreak before the feed switched to the next match. Mukund has an impressive serve, and had much more power off his groundstrokes than his opponent. But he is erratic. Confidence seems to be the key for him: he looked a better player than his ranking, but then I may have seen the best parts of his play, when he was confident and dominating. He was more inconsistent in the first set TB, but even then he dominated it (of the 3 points his opponent won, one was off a lucky net-chord). We have an impressive young cohort in Sumit Nagal and Mukund.
When I saw him play a few months ago, he was someone that mostly kept the ball in play without a ton of power. A little like Prajnesh's attempt at transitioning from the challenger to ATP levels, perhaps he is working on adding power to his ground strokes (and serve) to help him transition from the futures to challenger levels. That might explain some of his inconsistent results recently but it looks like he is now making the transition. Hopefully, he can go another couple of rounds here to his new career high and in contention for Australian open qualies in a few months,
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Re: East Asian Challengers, 2019

Post by Rajiv »

After splitting the opening 2 sets , Mukund leads 2-1 in the decider , with break up and his serve to follow.

- Holds at love to lead 3 -1 , his opponent seems to be in a discomfort and keeps clutching his lower back and even had a MTO.
Last edited by Rajiv on Fri Aug 30, 2019 6:51 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: East Asian Challengers, 2019

Post by PKBasu »

Poor first set (4-6), but Mukund has since done better: 6-1, serving at 2-1 (a break up) in the third.
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Re: East Asian Challengers, 2019

Post by Rajiv »

Mukund messing up the final set , with a break up in the decider , got broken , but eventualy got the break back in the 8th game to lead 5-4 and was serving 40 love for the match and strangely lost 5 points in a row to get broken and 5 all now .

hope he can close this one out....

- 6 all , TB to follow..

- 4 -1 up with a double break in TB , serves 2 DF's to give both the mini breaks back , and back to serve on 3-4 , seems pressure gets to him when he is nearer to closing out
Last edited by Rajiv on Fri Aug 30, 2019 7:33 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: East Asian Challengers, 2019

Post by Prem »

[QF] 12-Sasikumar Mukund (IND, 285) bt. 15-Harry Bourchier (AUS, 356) 4-6, 6-1, 7-6(3) :clap:

After losing the first set Mukund comes through a tough match in 3 sets. On to SEMIS

[SF] 12-Sasikumar Mukund (IND, 285) vs. 8-D Wu (CHN,265)
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Re: East Asian Challengers, 2019

Post by Rajiv »

phew .. finally made it after almost messing it up.

with this win he rises to around 252 a career high for Mukund
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Re: East Asian Challengers, 2019

Post by PKBasu »

[QF] 12-Sasikumar Mukund (IND, 285) d. 15-Harry Bourchier (AUS, 356) 46 61 76(3)

Some unnecessary sweat at the end, but Mukund won the tiebreaker with relative ease.
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Re: East Asian Challengers, 2019

Post by PKBasu »

Sorry I didn't see all the intervening posts when I came back to my computer. Anyway, the semifinal is against a Taiwanese player:

[SF] 12-Sasikumar Mukund (IND, 285) vs. 8-Tung-Lin Wu (TWN, 265)

Definitely the easier SF. The other features top seeded James Duckworth playing the 11th seed.
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Re: East Asian Challengers, 2019

Post by jaydeep »

Good to see, he managed to win ... Is this his first challenger semi-final?
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Re: East Asian Challengers, 2019

Post by PKBasu »

No, he also made the semifinal in the Chennai Challenger earlier this year.
But he has a lot of points to defend later this year. He made 3 Challenger QFs last year in October-November, one in China, and two in India (Pune and Bangalore).
He has also lost twice to his next opponent last year :-( Time for revenge!
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