Cassis/ Rennes Challenger, France (Hard), Sept. 5 -18, 2021

[sameerph]

Opening a thread for this as RamK playes singles qualifying and 5 more of our players are playing doubles.

Looks like RamK forgot to enter main draw here. He would have made it in based on his ranking. So, he has to instead play qualies.

[Q1] Ramkumar Ramanathan (IND,204) vs. (WC) Petros Tsitsipas (GRE,727)

I guess he is brother of Stefano.

[sameerph]

These are our doubles match-ups-

[R1] (3) Ramkumar Ramanathan (IND) / N. Sriram Balaji (IND) bye

[R1] (WC) Aniruddha Chandrashekhar (IND) / Vignesh Pernamuller (IND) vs. Ernesto Escobedo (USA) / Fernando Romboli (BRA)

[R1] (4) Jeevan Neduncheziyan (IND) / Purav Raja (IND) vs. Toshihide Matsui (JPN) / Kaito Uesugi (JPN)

[jaydeep]

[Q1] Ramkumar Ramanathan (IND,204) vs. (WC) Petros Tsitsipas (GRE,727)

I guess he is brother of Stefano.

Yes, Petros Tsitsipas is the younger brother of Stefanos Tsitsipas

[jayakris]

[Q1] (1) Ramkumar Ramanathan (IND,204) d. (WC) Petros Tsitsipas (GRE,727) 64 64

[Sanjay]

I thought I would never say this but RR looks to be India No 1 though the ranking says PG. He is playing the best among the men.

[Rajiv]

Matches on circuit nowadays have become so competitive and hard to confidentatly predict a outcome .
Ram has trouble with Damir, but Zane Khan took care of Damir at the USO, however today at Cassis, Hiroki Moriya beat Zane Khan, incidentally Tsitsipas overcame Moriya couple of months ago and today Ram beats Tsitsipas.
So using reverse logic can Ram beat Damir

[jayakris]

[Q2] (1) Ramkumar Ramanathan vs Arthur Cazaux (FRA,359), Monday

[Rajiv]

Even though the 19 yr oldlast year AO Junior finalist and # 4 ranked junior last year is ranked in the 300's the young kid has in him what it takes, as this year has wins over Sebastian Korda, world #37 Adrian Mannarino and even took Kamil Majchrzak to 4 sets at the FO,Although all these 3 matches were on clay, it clearly indicates he would be no pushover, and today saw his match , has amazing shot making skills and showed great calm and grit when faced with his opponent serving for the match, not only did he save MP's but went on to break back and secure a meeting with Ram.

[jayakris]

^^^ Yes, I also saw that match. To be frank though, I was hoping that the lower-ranked opponent Briand wouldn't win in that marathon 3-setter. Only because that shorter dude was quicker on the court and is adept at lobbing, which could kill RamK. In fact, but for the lobs, Cazaux would've closed the show at 5-3 in the second set. Briand seemed like a really good scrappy player with racket skills, of the kind against whom RamK might get impatient. Cazaux is much more solid in his game, though he had trouble against Briand's net game. He appeared to be very good and talented, but I think RamK can handle him. Let's see.

[arjun2761]

Thrilled to see Ramk beat Tsitsipas.

[jayakris]

Thrilled to see Ramk beat Tsitsipas.

Tsk, tsk, tsk... It's an itsybitsy tsitsipas, but a tsitsipas!

[jayakris]

[Q2] (1) Ramkumar Ramanathan (IND,204) d. Arthur Cazaux (FRA,359), 64 62

So in the main draw,

[R1] (Q) Ramkumar Ramanathan (IND,204) vs Ernests Gulbis (LAT,205)

[PKBasu]

Interesting that Ramkumar gets to play a former top-10 (actually #10) player who is now ranked just one slot behind him. Gulbis was once thought of as the next big thing in tennis, but he never lived up to his promise (apart from making one semifinal at the FO). He is 33 now, and I think this is going to be a very winnable match for Ramkumar.

[vparam]

Did Ram enter the tournament late? Wondering why he had to play qualies as there are a few other players with lower ranking who received direct entry.

[PKBasu]

Yes, he entered the tournament late, and so had to play qualifiers (albeit being top seeded in that qualifying draw).