European Challengers 2020

[PKBasu]

Very impressive straight sets win for Mukund, against a fellow 23 year old who has earned twice as much career prize money, but who will now be ranked lower than his Indian rival!

[Rajiv]

Good confident win.

Mukund should be fast tracked in the DC team, that's how some unorthodox approach's work, and it can make huge positive change for him.

[jaydeep]

Yes, a good straight-sets win for Mukund ... Next, a tougher challenge of the top-150 Hanfmann.

[jayakris]

Mukund should be fast tracked in the DC team, that's how some unorthodox approach's work, and it can make huge positive change for him.

Maybe true, but I would rather they leave him alone. He is a clean, thoughtful guy who is focused and goes about doing his job. The moment he is in the Davis Cup team, all the bull crap politics will start. Distractions. Let him just fly under the radar, improve his game, and get up inside top-150 first.

[sameerph]

I agree. He is just getting about getting to be consistent at challenger level now. He is 4-3 at challenger level this year not counting this week( success rate of 57% in what is usually a tough period in terms of field at challengers against his career average success rate of 42%.

Tough match against Hanfmann next. Hanfmann has been on and off so far this year. Lost to Prajnesh in AO Q2 in 3 sets, next week went to the final of Burnie Challenger only to go down in first round of Laucheston Challenger to a player ranked below 400. So, lets us see what form he shows up against Mukund.

[jayakris]

At the € 46,600 Bergamo Challenger, hard

[R1] (1) Purav Raja (IND)/ Adil Shamasdin (CAN) d. Nino Serdarusic (CRO)/ Chun-hsin Tseng (TPE), 64 36 [10-3]
so,
[QF] (1) Purav Raja (IND)/ Adil Shamasdin (CAN) vs Zdenek Kolar (CZE)/ Julian Ocleppo (ITA)

[jaydeep]

But Bala and Jeevan lost their first round match against the 3rd seed Begemann and Mergea.

At €46.6K+H Koblenz Challenger 2020, Germany

[R1] N. Sriram Balaji (IND)/ Jeevan Nedunchezhiyan (IND) l (3) Andre Begemann (GER)/ Florin Mergea (ROU) 67(6) 64 6-10

[Rajiv]

Maybe true, but I would rather they leave him alone. He is a clean, thoughtful guy who is focused and goes about doing his job. The moment he is in the Davis Cup team, all the bull crap politics will start. Distractions. Let him just fly under the radar, improve his game, and get up inside top-150 first.

Just mentioned that possibility , as in the past guys like Ramesh / LP /Yuki / Karan had been drafted into the team simply based on their potential.
But looking at it once again , those guys were under had able , learned Tennis Guru's as DC Captains from whom there was so much to learn and receive correct guidance .

But unfortunately , now we have a Politician who dabbled in Tennis when a youngster , as the Team Captain

So as you rightly said better to avoid the bull crap politics in the DC team and let him be on his own and he seems to be having a right approach for his game as one can see , he rarely concentrates on Doubles and Singles play is his prime focus.

[sameerph]

Mukund was up 3-0 in first set and had couple of breakpoints to go up 4-0 . But, Hanfmann held on in that game and then broke Mukund in next game. Then, games went on serve till Hanfamnn broke Mukund in 11 th game and then held on after couple of deuces for 7-5.

[Rajiv]

Mukund lost in straight sets 57 46
And probably playing every single day since Monday without a day off would have taken its toll.

But still a comendable perfomance, and a week's rest , and back to his training base will recharge him for the SAF challenger

[sameerph]

Next week is not a week off for Mukund. He is 1 out from entry list of Pau Challenger in France. Then a week off and then SAF challenger. He needs one big tournament to SF or better to get inside top 250 and into grand slam qualies.

[jaydeep]

Another disappointing loss of Purav and Adil against Ocleppo and Kolar in straight sets.

At €46.6K+H Bergamo Challenger 2020, Italy

[QF] (1) Purav Raja (IND)/ Adil Shamasdin (CAN) l Zdenek Kolar (CZE)/ Julian Ocleppo (ITA) 36 57

[jaydeep]

Sumit and Mukund r playing in the French challenger ... Sumit is the 3rd seed and Mukund is playing against Arthur De Greef.
In the doubles, Purav and Adil r facing Weissborn and Sancic.

At €92K+H Pau Challenger 2020, France

[R1] (3) Sumit Nagal (IND,126) bye
[R1] Sasikumar Mukund (IND,282) vs (PR) Arthur De Greef (BEL,288)

Doubles
[R1] Purav Raja (IND)/ Adil Shamasdin (CAN) vs Antonio Sancic (CRO)/ Tristan-Samuel Weissborn (AUT)

[sameerph]

Mukund is playing a barn-burner against De Greef. All sqaure at 67(5) 76(3) after 1 hour 51 mins.

[sameerph]

And he comes thru in best of 3 tie breaks.

At €92K+H Pau Challenger 2020, France

[R1] Sasikumar Mukund (IND,279) d.(PR) Arthur De Greef (BEL,288) 67(5) 76(3) 76(2)

De Greef was a solid top 200 player till last June after he seemed to have got injured and did not play for second half of last year. He also looked to be a different player than a typical European clay courter as he was slicing the ball a lot on the backhand side and came to the net quite often and volleyed well. So, Mukund had to adjust to this but played the 2 tie breaks perfectly.

Next,

[R2] Sasikumar Mukund (IND,279) vs.(8) Lukas Lacko (SVK,168)

[R2] (3) Sumit Nagal (IND,127) vs. Hugo Grenier (FRA,250)