ITF India Futures (4 weeks) March 2021

[arjun2761]

He will be made to feel Yuk-ki next week

Apparently, Yuki isn't playing in the Delhi Futures this coming week. Bizarre, as usual, with Yuki's scheduling.

I wonder what his plans are next. Seems like this would have been like a nice practice tournament for him. Just hope that he hasn't uncovered some other niggle....

[prasen9]

Crawford stopped the Zane train by defeating him in straight sets. So the zany guy is at 615 ranking now, career high. Given that Yuki will not play, he will be seeded. Hope Sid Rawat or someone makes a bit of a noise in Delhi.

[PKBasu]

Zane Khan isn't playing in Delhi. And it seems there was no play today on account of Holi, which is rather strange. Saketh is only playing doubles (partnering Arjun Kadhe), perhaps an indication that Saketh will make a bid to become a doubles specialist. Sid Rawat is top seeded but has a tough match against the Swede, Filip Bergevi, in R1. Let's see if he can finally win a match in this round of Futures.

[suresh]

No PKB. Saketh wants to focus on singles.

“I want to focus on singles and see how my body feels” – Saketh Myneni

[prasen9]

Saketh is perhaps not fit. Even if he wants to be a doubles specialist, if he is playing at Delhi and his body can take it, then he would play both singles and doubles. Unless, he is saying that his body cannot take singles and he will get injured by playing singles. Which I do not think he is saying yet.

[arjun2761]

No PKB. Saketh wants to focus on singles.

“I want to focus on singles and see how my body feels” – Saketh Myneni

Thanks, Suresh. Good article. Also explains why many Indians players are sluggish coming back from Covid. The infrastructure really isn't there to train effectively once the few gyms or courts are shut down. So, I would expect many Indian athletes in at least the physical sports to be further behind that at least those in developed countries.

That said, things like nutrition you can control. Eating "what my inlaws fed me" isn't what professionals do in many parts of the world as I still think that performance nutrition isn't a part of many of our athletes culture.

[PKBasu]

That is an odd interview, but perhaps inadvertently revealing. Why the hell didn't he find a way to get to a gym or find/order equipment to stay fit during the months of lockdown? While other players were playing the USO, FO, and preparatory tournaments, Saketh was stuck at home not touching a tennis racquet until November 2020? That is just totally unprofessional, especially for a 32 year old who looked promising when he reached a brief peak at age 28 (playing that humdinger in R1 of the US Open against Jiri Vesely, which he would have won had the umpire not overturned a match-winning line call on matchpoint).

If he does indeed intend to focus on singles, it is simply bizarre that he isn't playing singles this week in a tournament where he would have been seeded first. Instead, he is playing just doubles, which suggests that he isn't quite as serious about singles as he claims in that interview.

[Kumar]

For a professional athlete, he could have easily found some equipments online or even hired a personal trainer!

But then, there is always a point, when your mind craves a break ! Tennis can be a very lonely and mentally tiring sport, so the opportunity to completely relax probably doesnot come often! So cannot really blame him at his age to take it easy

[Atithee]

I read only blaming others; not a single thing except gardening that he could have done to improve himself. Pretty damning.

[PKBasu]

One victory over a foreign player today (albeit an American NRI):

1-Alexander Kotzen (USA, 1007) d. Vishnu Vardhan 63 63
Faisal Qamar l. 12-Muthu Aadhitiya Senthilkumar 16 36
Siddharth Vishwakarma d. Rishi Reddy 62 (retd)
5-Omni Kumar (USA) l. Ishaque Eqbal 62 67(7) 8-10

[PKBasu]

The above 4 matches are in FQR, as are the following two (with one win and one loss):

Suraj Prabodh d. Preston Brown (USA) 75 64
6-Nitin Kumar Sinha l. 7-Henry Patten (GBR) 16 46

[PKBasu]

Some more results:

[R1] Dev Javia (IND, UNR) l. WC-Fardeen Qamar (IND, UNR) 46 64 36
[R1] Niki Kaliyandi Poonacha (IND, 856) d. WC-Nishant Dabas (IND, UNR) 62 36 62

Nishant Dabas is a 17-year-old ranked 116 among the world's juniors; good to see the fight from him. Dev Javia (now 19) was ranked 54 among juniors at the start of last year, and made the QF of a J1 event in Malaysia before lockdown struck. 20 yo Fardeen Qamar's best junior ranking was in the 300s, so he is really quite lucky with the draw here, and gets his first ATP point.

[PKBasu]

Dhruv Sunish (IND, 1011) is leading 4-1 in the first set against Lorenzo Bocchi (ITA, 757).

[PKBasu]

From being down 0-4 to Dhruv Sunish, Lorenzo Bochhi came back to sweep to victory 76(4) 60

[PKBasu]

So far, this round of Futures in India (for women and men) has seen the worst performance by Indians in a series of home tournaments for many years. This week is the last opportunity for the Indian contingent to redeem themselves. Clearly, the absence of competitive tennis (or even good access to fitness equipment) has had had a disastrous effect on India's tennis players. Riya Bhatia has shown in the past 2 days that it is possible for a good player to recover from this inactivity (after some initial setbacks). Let us hope some of the Indian players are able to at least live up to their rankings this week!