2020 French Open (postponed to 20Sept-4Oct)

[sameerph]

Vucic was taken to deuce in the next service game too but pulled down a couple more aces. Now 10 aces in 3 service games by Vucic. Praj serving at 2-4.

[sameerph]

Vucic holds and Praj holds for 4-5. But, now Vucic will serve for the set.

Rest of the game, Praj looks a better player but Vucic is just blasting down those aces to save himself, 12 now in 4 service games.

Vucic holds at 30 to take the first set 6-4.

Praj will have to hope for some drop in Vucic service level or a lucky game where he does not hit too many first serves to get a look in here.

[sameerph]

In the second set, Prajnesh went an early break up at 2-0 but got broken right back in the next game. In the very next game, Praj was up 40-0 on Vucic serve but could not convert any of those break points.

After that games have gone with serve with Vucic now serving at 4-5.

Vucic holds at 15 for 5-5.

Praj holds at 15 for 6-5. Now, he need to try to break here because tie break can be tough against a big server.

Nope, Vucic holds after a couple of deuces for 6-6. Tie break time.

Lost.

[Q2] (29) Prajnesh Gunneswaran (IND,141) l. Aleksandar Vukic (AUS,190) 46 67(4)

[sameerph]

I just feel that Praj's own serve was below par today and Vucic was probably at the top of his serving game. Although rest of Praj's game looked better than Vucic, it was not so much better to compensate those differences in free points won on serve.

19 aces, 0 DF for Vucic, 3 aces, 2 df for Praj, +18 points won more by Vucic when ball did not enter play after serving, Very difficult to make up that much deficit.

[PKBasu]

Disappointing loss for Prajnesh. These are matches and match-ups that he really needs to win, especially at his age. Prajnesh's career has been full of near-misses (like FO2018 and USO2020) so he needs to take these chances (like a relatively easy draw here) and take full toll.

So the Indian challenge in men's singles is over. Women's singles still remains: go Ankita!

[PKBasu]

Ankita's Q2 match against Nara is the first one on Court 11 today, starting at 1:30pm IST.

[PKBasu]

Not much of a fight from Ankita today. She's down 3-6, 1-4 now.

[PKBasu]

Ankita lost 36 26 in the second qualifying round. Sad!

So our players ran into the Peter Principle in the second round of the FO qualifiers: on clay, there is a limit to how much they can do. Sumit, despite being a clay courter, probably didn't have enough time to adjust his game back to clay from his hard-court preparations before the USO.

[suresh]

Yes, we had a lousy qualifying.

[vparam]

I believe if Prajnesh had won his second round match, he would have had a very good chance of getting into the maindraw even had he lost his 3rd round of qualifying as there were at least 3 late withdrawals. I guess we will never know.

[prasen9]

19 aces, 0 DF for Vucic, 3 aces, 2 df for Praj, +18 points won more by Vucic when ball did not enter play after serving, Very difficult to make up that much deficit.

At this rate, maybe we should set up a National Tennis Serving Academy and have all our players attend to it one day a week when they are not playing. Even if it is remotely to be eligible to get any funding or support from AITA.

[gbelday]

19 aces, 0 DF for Vucic, 3 aces, 2 df for Praj, +18 points won more by Vucic when ball did not enter play after serving, Very difficult to make up that much deficit.

At this rate, maybe we should set up a National Tennis Serving Academy and have all our players attend to it one day a week when they are not playing. Even if it is remotely to be eligible to get any funding or support from AITA.

Yes, our players need some free points and having a good serve is so essential to succeed at the highest levels.

[sameerph]

I believe if Prajnesh had won his second round match, he would have had a very good chance of getting into the maindraw even had he lost his 3rd round of qualifying as there were at least 3 late withdrawals. I guess we will never know.

True. Prajnesh's conquerer Vucic qualified for the main draw beating Jason Jung in Q3 and than Jason Jung also got in as a lucky loser. So, it could so easily have been Prajnesh. But, he has never been that lucky in his career.

[PKBasu]

Astra Sharma lost her final qualifying round match 16 16 (did she tank that??), then got into the main draw as a Lucky Loser, and went through to R2 with a 3 set win.

[PKBasu]

Tough draws in doubles:

Bopanna/Shapovalov play the 2014 Wimbledon champions, Pospisil/Sock, in R1.
Divij Sharan/Soonwoo Kwon play 16th seeds Krajicek/Skugor in R1.