Bengaluru Challenger 1 and 2 - Jan/Feb 2022

[Rajiv]

5th straight singles loss for Ram for 2022 and still looking for the elusive win.
This was the match Ram should have won , higher ranked and over 80% pollsters favouring Ram,Even Prajnesh in his horrendous form took out the Frenchmen in straight sets last week.
If one saw the match 90% of the balls the Frenchman played on Ram’s BH , from which he could never recover and was always on the defensive , tried to S/V but had little success in it. Coming weeks will be more tougher IW (if he makes the cut) and only couple challengers on hard courts in US during IW week and then later weeks the challenger's are mostly on clay.

[PKBasu]

Sid Rawat upset Mukund 64 64, and Nitin Sinha was over-matched against the Frenchman, losing 16 16.

Ramkumar had such a promising end to 2021, singles-wise, winning his first Challenger title and doing well in several others. Now in 2022, he has suddenly gone 0-5 in singles matches -- but is 12-0 in doubles! The 3 Indian tournaments have yielded him no singles points at all -- a colossal waste.

Sid Rawat beating Mukund isn't such an upset in my eyes: before the pandemic, Sid was ranked 430, not too far behind a rising Mukund. The latter has preserved his ranking better during the pandemic, although he also had a long run of frustrating results in Futures last year. Sid is a player quite capable of competing in Challengers, despite his poor current ranking.

[arjun2761]

Looks like home country advantage isn't there for Indian players these days. Perhaps, the Indian infrastructure and food/water has improved enough that the foreigners aren't disadvantaged as much as they used to before?

Of course, holding these in the heat of May/June would bring back some of the home condition advantage....

[Kumar]

Or hold it in a humid place instead of bengaluru and pune.

[Rajiv]

Today a mouthwatering Dbls encounter between Yuki/Divij & Ram/Saketh

[suresh]

I am picking Ram/Saketh to win. Let me know what you think.

[Rajiv]

Based on his (Ram)sparkling dbls form Ram/Saketh with their noses in front,and I see them to prevail.
But Yuki/Divij no pushover's, being the toughest opponents Ram/Saki have faced in these 2 Challengers plus pride and bragging rights to fight for

[PKBasu]

Looks like home country advantage isn't there for Indian players these days. Perhaps, the Indian infrastructure and food/water has improved enough that the foreigners aren't disadvantaged as much as they used to before?

Of course, holding these in the heat of May/June would bring back some of the home condition advantage....

The absence of a crowd is the biggest loss for home players. You may as well be playing anywhere. Besides, Bengaluru is very different from other India venues, and in February it must be cold too -- plus the balls flying around more than normal.

[sameerph]

Yuki and Saketh proved too strong for Yuki and Divij. 6 of the 8 Indian pairs in the Quarter finals are from India. These are first round results-

R1

(1) Alexander Erler (AUT) / Arjun Kadhe (IND) d. Bogdan Bobrov (RUS) /Dominik Palan (RUS) 60 63
(WC) S D Prajwal Dev (IND) / Niki Kaliyanda Poonacha (IND) d. Steven Diez (CAN) / Rio Noguchi (JPN) 62 64
Markos Kalovelonis (GRE) / Toshihide Matsui (JPN) d. Anirudh Chandrasekar (IND) / N Vijay Sundar Prashanth (IND) 75 76(3)
(4) N.Sriram Balaji (IND) / Vishnu Vardhan (IND) d. (WC) Suraj R Prabodh (IND) /Rishi Reddy (IND) 64 62
(3) Saketh Myneni (IND) / Ramkumar Ramanathan (IND) d. Yuki Bhambri (IND) / Divij Sharan (IND) 61 75
(2) Jeevan Nedunchezhiyan (IND) / Purav Raja (IND) d. Thomas Fancutt (AUS) /Jason Kubler (AUS) 63 75

Next,

Singles

[R2] (WC) Siddharth Rawat (IND,650) vs, (Q) Antoine Bellier (SUI,509)

[R2] (WC) Arjun Kadhe (IND,739) vs. (3) Enzo Couacaud (FRA,155)

Doubles

[QF] (1) Alexander Erler (AUT) / Arjun Kadhe (IND) vs. (WC) S D Prajwal Dev (IND) / Niki Kaliyanda Poonacha (IND)
[QF] (4) N.Sriram Balaji (IND) / Vishnu Vardhan (IND) vs. Markos Kalovelonis (GRE) / Toshihide Matsui (JPN)
[QF] (3) Saketh Myneni (IND) / Ramkumar Ramanathan (IND) vs. Vladyslav Orlov (UKR) / Kai Wehnelt (GER)
[QF] (2) Jeevan Nedunchezhiyan (IND) / Purav Raja (IND) vs. Enzo Couacaud (FRA) / Andrew Harris (AUS)

[vparam]

Looks like home country advantage isn't there for Indian players these days. Perhaps, the Indian infrastructure and food/water has improved enough that the foreigners aren't disadvantaged as much as they used to before?

Of course, holding these in the heat of May/June would bring back some of the home condition advantage....

The absence of a crowd is the biggest loss for home players. You may as well be playing anywhere. Besides, Bengaluru is very different from other India venues, and in February it must be cold too -- plus the balls flying around more than normal.

What do you consider cold? It’s was mid 80’s by day and low 70’s by evening.

[Atithee]

Yuki and Saketh proved too strong for Yuki and Divij. 6 of the 8 Indian pairs in the Quarter finals are from India. These are first round results-

Yuki playing both sides of the court must require a lot of physical conditioning

[prasen9]

Yuki and Saketh proved too strong for Yuki and Divij. 6 of the 8 Indian pairs in the Quarter finals are from India. These are first round results-

Yuki playing both sides of the court must require a lot of physical conditioning

Was he favoring one side over the other or playing ethically? I remember when I had to field (I liked fielding) as a substitute for the "other" team or when we were playing with all-side fielding, I did do my best in the field for the other team. But, often, some folks did not. So, was Yuki taking the knowledge of one team's strategy while facing them on the other side? And, what happened when he was serving to himself? Did he remember and anticipate the serve when running back to the other side? Or was he too slow between sides such that the advance knowledge did not matter? Questions, questions ...

[Atithee]

^^^ I only know that when he served to himself, they were all aces. Or, maybe they played Australian doubles format.

[prasen9]

^^^ I only know that when he served to himself, they were all aces. Or, maybe they played Australian doubles format.

And, here I thought Yuki was a very good returner. Or is it ... because of that he wants his ace count to go up ... so that he can claim to be a great server?

But, the real question is why he likes to play the Australian doubles format and not the Canadian one?

[PKBasu]

All our singles players are out (the last 2 losing in R2), although Sid Rawat took his match to a third set, and Arjun lost in two close sets to the third seed.

In doubles, two all-Indian pairs are in the SF (RamK/Saketh, and Vishnu/Balaji). Two other all-Indian pairs are locked in STBs now to see if they might make the SF too -- although one of the pairs is playing a half-Indian one (Kadhe/Erler, who are top seeds).