ATP tournaments in Australia (pre-AO), January 2022

[Rajiv]

Meanwhile Rune comfortably qualifies for the MD beating a much higher ranked opponent than Ram # 129 J P Varilas 2 & 3, whereas Ram fully stretched him and put a much better fight than the higher ranked Varillas and even though he lost the S1 by early first game break , he was regularly having BP's in S1 on the Danish serve and constantly looked to break him , and in S2 had the full measure of his opponent until that melt down in the TB.
Had he won the second set , surely the outcome would have been different.
So he really is playing good tennis much better than Bahrain I feel ,and has had a good off season training , Just need to put this loss behind him and be positive for the doubles and the all important qualies next week.

[Dinesh]

Ramkumar may definitely be playing his best level of tennis in recent months, but in order to succeed at the ATP Q level and gradually move closer to the main draws, he is going to equally work on his mental and on-court attitude issues. Juan Pablo Varillas played 73 matches last year, 71 of which were on clay. He won 51 out of those (72% Win rate), and the other 2 on hard and grass surfaces, both of which he lost. So despite being ranked higher than Ramkumar, he probably is not better than him on this particular surface.

Let's hope for less fancied R1 opponents next week at the AO qualifying event for both Ramkumar and Prajnesh.

[PKBasu]

Where is sameer? He hasn’t posted in several days. Hope he’s ok.

He has been posting on the ITD (Indian Tennis Daily) chat, so all is well, I think.

[PKBasu]

Bhambri-Venus are playing a pair of singles specialists (Griekspoor-Vavassori) in R1 at Melbourne. So I would expect them to win that round, which will put them up against the top-seeds (Koolhof & Neal Skupsky) in the last-16 (R2; the top 8 seeds had byes).

[sameerph]

Where is sameer? He hasn’t posted in several days. Hope he’s ok.

He has been posting on the ITD (Indian Tennis Daily) chat, so all is well, I think.

Yes, all well as of now. Just been travelling on vacation for a week or so. So, did not post. Bit of a hassle to post on forum thru mobile. Also not much was happening in sports in last few days. Will start posting regularly soon.

[Atithee]

Thank you, sameer for confirming that all is well. Happy new year and welcome back.

[PKBasu]

Ramkumar/Rohan win 62 61, and Sania/Nadiia beat the 2nd seeds in a STB for a bright start to the year for Indian tennis at Adelaide!

[PKBasu]

[R1] Ramkumar Ramanathan/Rohan Bopanna (IND/IND) d. James Cerretani (USA)/Fernando Romboli (BRA) 62 61

[R1] Sania Mirza/Nadiia Kichenok (IND/UKR) d. 2-Giuliana Olmos/Gabriela Dabrowski (MEX/CAN) 16 63 10-8

[PKBasu]

Divij qualified into the main draw of the Traralgon Challenger, but lost in R1 of singles:

FQR [4] Divij Sharan (IND, UNR) d. [6] Patrick Fitzgerald (AUS, UNR) 64 16 75

[R1] Divij Sharan (IND, UNR) l. Dominic Stricker (SUI, 246) 46 26

Partnering Christopher Rungkat of Indonesia, Divij is seeded 2nd in doubles.

[Omkara]

Good job by Dvij to play singles. His game deteriorated over years. He should play more singles qualies and doubles in challengers for some time to come.

[PKBasu]

Losing start to his comeback for Yuki at the Melbourne ATP250 (with a partner who won the Paris Masters last year, his previous tournament):

[R1] Yuki Bhambri/Michael Venus (IND/NZL) l. Tallon Griekspoor/Andrea Vavassori (NED/ITA) 46 46

Serving was our pair's weakness. No aces to 4 for the opponents, and 5 double faults to none for the opponents. 55 points lost to 48 won, so the 9 lost serves (4 aces faced, 5 DFs conceded) made all the difference in the match.

[PKBasu]

Rohan/Ramkumar are 5-5 in the first set against 5th seeds Lemmons/Withrow (USA/USA) at Adelaide.

[Rajiv]

The Scratch pairing of Ram & Rohan score a commendable win over their 8 seeded opponents 67 76 10-4, and this pairing is looking good , sad that they cannot partner at the AO , as Edouard Roger will be back after completing his Nations Cup duty.

Yuki meanwhile lost his opening DBLS round partnering Michael Venus in straight sets 4 & 4

On a side note with the earnings from qualies and this doubles QF showing Ram so far has earned $3480 taking his career earnings to $935,219 and pips Yuki by exactly ONE dollar to become the 7th highest Indian in career prize money earning after LP/MB/Bops/Som/VA/RK.

[rajitghosh]

Sania should be above most except LP and MB

[Rajiv]

Sania is not behind MB, infact she is ahead of Bhupathi in terms of career earnings, but that list was primarily made for male Indian players.