US Challengers 2021

[sameerph]

I was able to see the first set. Now stream seems to have gone off.

[jayakris]

Krueger holds serve. 67(4) 25, and RR serving to stay alive.

The stream is back. There was a long argument from RR with the umpire and supervisors, that he was not ready to receive on the previous two points off Krueger's serve. The commentators saying that RR had walked to his spot and looked like he was ready before he started moving away. "I know he is a great human being, but this is just not a good look, man" says the commentator about RR. He also said he doesn't know what it was that RR said to Krueger's wife and his coach in the stands. Apparently there was more drama before (not sure what) based on what the commentator says

Just as expected, he looked like crap in the final game. Drops serve with one mistake after another. It is a 6th loss in 6 challenger finals. 67(4) 26.

Mind matters. RamK needs to calm his mind down. The guy is still arguing. Tried to walk off the court (not in protest actually; just wanted to get out of there I guess) when they want him back for the trophy presentation. He is still talking to the supervisor. Why Ramk? Just move on.

RamK speaks, thanks the crowd and the Indian community and all that. Now, a ball girl collapses due to heat, and there is more drama. She is fine, and Krueger gets his trophy after a long 10 minute break.

RamK will need to wait for another chance for his first title

[Sanjay]

I watched the match from the 2nd set when RR was down 1-4.

It is not clear why he gets into these situations where he has to argue with the opponent, umps, and today I think with the opponents wife and coach. The first time the ump said he was ready and then became "unready" and that seemed to be the case when I was watching. The second time though he was never ready, he went to tie his showlace and Krueger just served. I need to go and re-watch the footage to confirm. But the prolonged argument was not needed.

Comparison with other players behavior is also not a good one. McEnroe, Connors and others were all top players ranked 1, 2 or in the top 5 so anything they do is usually looked at in a different way as they bring in a lot of revenue and star-power. RR is in the 200s so carries a different weight. While he may be right in some cases, it does not work to his benefit to quibble about every little thing and become a marked man both with players and umps. I hope he gets some good advice and keeps his focus to his game and works on his rankings.

Here's a shot of RR tying his shoelaces while Kreuger was serving.

[arjun2761]

He was behaving quite boorishly in the last match that I saw as well (perhaps in R2?). His main argument then seemed to that his opponent was taking too long to get ready for his serves. So, this seems to be the opposite argument. In either case, not a good look for a journeyman on the tour and at least somewhat mars his best performance in some time.

[Atithee]

Here are highlights of the match including the shoe lace tying point but nothing else. As I watched him for the first time, his backhand is not worthy of a top level professional player. Krueger just had to keep hitting there and win the points.

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[vparam]

Good week for RamK to get to the final, however his game is mostly at challenger level. His backhand is very weak and is a liability. His attitude is awful.

[jayakris]

It is not clear why he gets into these situations where he has to argue with the opponent, umps, and today I think with the opponents wife and coach. The first time the ump said he was ready and then became "unready" and that seemed to be the case when I was watching. The second time though he was never ready, he went to tie his shoelace and Krueger just served. I need to go and re-watch the footage to confirm. But the prolonged argument was not needed.

I watched the footage at ChallengerTV. RamK was utterly wrong every which way, and he was beating himself with all the antics. Just play tennis, damnit. We don't want to see Indians screwing themselves up with their mental games.

It seems his complaint was that Kreuger was going to the towel and delaying him. RR probably likes to go at a higher pace (maybe his way of doing no-think tennis), but Kreuger probably sensed it and was probably taking 5 second extra in his towel trips (we don't see all that in the footage). Anyway, RR had decided to make an issue of it, at the expense of his own ability to think about the tennis he had to play. Mind you, he wasa break down, not up. He had no time for any of this. Dumb as dumb can be.

It seems he has been complaining constantly to the umpire about it already. At 4-1, when he was serving, he even decided to mock Kreuger, saying, "yeah, yeah, go to the towel". The commentator couldn't believe it, and frankly I can't believe it. The most uncouth behavior I have seen from an Indian player. You can argue with the umpire but you don't mock the opponent. Way over the line. And he does that against an American in an event in America. Great thinking, RR. The crowd will love it. He is lucky they didn't boo him. Evn that is okay, but it was RR who was losing his ability to focus his mind and think of his own strategy, when he was constantly looking to complain and mock Kreuger. When will he learn?

Then in the next game, it was clear that he was trying to mock the umpire. So he deliberately did the crazy acts. We don't see what happened at his end, but the umpire says "you were ready and then you were non-ready" - which means he was deliberately trying to spite the ump into making Krueger serve again. That was not going to work. And then he does the dumbest thing, which made it clear to everybody that he was deliberate in all this. Because he tried to mock the umpire right in the next point AGAIN. He stands sort of ready and drops down to tie his shoe-lace. No doubt there. We can see it. Silly. At that point, he would do that only if he had decided to see if the ump will ask Krueger to serve again after that antic. Fat chance for that. How dumb can you be, to do this, when you desperately need to break the other guy and cannot lose a point and then again another? Why are you thinking of all this when you had to play tennis? Forget the boorishness of it. He was beating himself by focusing on things of no relevance in trying to win the match.

Then he goes into his protracted grunting. The commentator calls him out immediately. We can all see it. It is not natural. Just gimmicks to make yourself play harder, or distract the opponent. And this commentator knows Ram very well and even says, "I am having a hard time with this, as I know he is a great guy". Somebody who likes Ram. Just like me and all of us. We can only SMH at seeing a guy self-destruct like this.

[Atithee]

And, based on earlier comments, he even got into an argument with Mitch’s wife? Arguing with the fans, let alone family members, is a distinct no-no. You can never win anyone with that. Today’s account makes me lose most of my admiration for someone I thought is India’s best hope currently.

[jayakris]

^^^ I don't think it was an argument. Looked like he looked up and said something to mock them. It looked so bad. I really cringe at the thought that it is an Indian doing this. Does he have no idea about court etiquette? I am willing to forego all that if somebody does something that helps win the match. This is all hurting him the worst way. When will somebody sit him down and tell him to grow up?

[Atithee]

Mocking the people in stands is even worse than an argument. Totally unsportsmanlike conduct and should’ve been penalized, if rules allow. Even made to default. I also cringe when an Indian does this. He’s hurting everyone and mostly himself. Needs to stop before he is called for foot fault etc. one day as a marked man and loses it completely. He’ll have no friends on the tour either. Embarrassing.

[vparam]

There’s drama in every match he plays.

[Sin Hombre]

He is one of the most unliked players on the tour, as the Russian correctly pointed out earlier in the year.

[Dinesh]

That was sad to watch. Mitchell Krueger is one of the nicest American tennis players I have ever known. Is this the worst behavior any tennis player of Indian origin ever showed on the court?

[jayakris]

That was sad to watch. Mitchell Krueger is one of the nicest American tennis players I have ever known. Is this the worst behavior any tennis player of Indian origin ever showed on the court?

To the extent I know, it may be. i don't remember reports of anything worse. LP has had an edge to him at times and had his antics (usually in response to some bad boys on the tour), but he generally knew where to draw the line, and also how to talk his way out of it afterwards by sweet-talking also. Oh well.. Like the commentator for this match, many people know that RamK is also nice guy, off-court, and they all must feel bad that he resorts to all these antics as part of his own wrong perceptions of how to fire himself up.

RamK has always lacked a proper "guru" to be under the wings of. That has really affected his development. That is what I feel. I may be wrong. I don't know RamK at all. I don't remember him ever really coming around to the LA area.

[rajitghosh]

LP's fights were restricted more to Mahesh and Rohan that too off the court. I remember 1 spat he had with Agassi at the US Open. Agassi turned out to be more bad than him, basically out badded him. RamK is more like Inzamam, next time he may assault someone in the crowd.