European Challengers 2022

[suresh]

Verdasco called it quits against RamK with the scoreline 6-4 1-0 in favour of RamK.

[Rajiv]

Yes finally an arrest to string of losses which came via a walkover ,he was hitting and serving differently, just the way mentioned in morning that win over Kavcic without hitting loopy top spins.
But still premature to judge if there is a turnaround ,as was 5-2 up  , and quickly went love 40 down at 54 and had too stave of numerous BP's to hold on to the set
So the next match would give a much clearer picture if the change has really happened

But in the end great to get off the monkey of string of losses from his back .

[jayakris]

Nice! I will take a win for RamK whichever way it comes

[sameerph]

Yes, finally a win for him in singles in 2022. RamK and Yuki also started with a strong win in doubles. In fact they were cruising and seemed to be crushing their opponents at 6-1, 3-0 but all of a sudden they lost 5 games in a row to go down 3-5 but fought back to make it 5-5 and then to tie break which they won easily.

At Aix-en-Provence Challenger 100, France ( Red Clay)

[R1] Ramkumar Ramanathan (IND,185) d. (7) Fernando Verdasco (ESP,108) 64 10 retd.

[R1] Ramkumar Ramanathan (IND) / Yuki Bhambri (IND) d. Gregoire Barrere (FRA) / Constant Lestienne (FRA) 61 76(3)

Next,

[R2] Ramkumar Ramanathan (IND,185) vs. Salvatero Caruso (ITA,192)

[arjun2761]

Good wins by RamK in singles and RamK and Yuki in doubles! Hope that they can get a few more wins here...

[arjun2761]

Lee was a special talent. We can't compare the current crop with him. And Lee-Hesh in doubles was how great doubles combinations should play. And they had some strong rivals in the Aussies, Swedes and so on. Again can't compare their doubles with the current lot.

Personally, I like watching doubles (and of course pretty much only play doubles personally). Agree that the tour does not value doubles and it is considered an after thought in most events when compared to the singles. However, doubles does require a skillset which emphasizes different aspects of tennis (especially net play and hitting good angles on returns and ground strokes). If it was valued equally, it's not like all the top singles players would instantly become the top doubles players although many would. My guess is that a top 50 of doubles in this scenario would likely include 20 doubles specialists and 30 primary singles players.

Even in sports like badminton, where the limelight is shared more evenly, most of the doubles teams are different from the singles players.

[PKBasu]

Excellent win over Verdasco. Despite the 38 year old withdrawing after going down 4-6, 0-1 this was a well-deserved win for Ramkumar. He had to dig deep after nearly conceding his big lead a couple of times in the set, and did come through. The former world #7 is still ranked 108, made the QF at the ATP Estoril Open last week (after qualifying in) and also qualified into the Miami Masters, so he remains a formidable opponent (as Prajnesh found in the Monterrey Challenger final).

The doubles win was pretty decent too. Barriere has a career-high singles rank of 80, and beat Tsonga in R1 of singles here (although Tsonga is now 37, and ranked 265, slightly worse than Barriere's 247), while Lestienne is 175 in singles. They both have had some success in doubles at Challenger level, so it wasn't a gimme match.

[PKBasu]

This is supposed to be a $150K+H Challenger, although the prize money is a lot lower (perhaps because the Euro has depreciated sharply against the USD this year). But a lot of stars playing: Gasquet is the third seed in singles (and, of course Tsonga and Verdasco have lost in R1).
Both Barrere and Lestienne, the doubles R1 losers, have recently had main draw wins at Slam doubles, so they really weren't a gimme pair

[sameerph]

No, this is a 100K(+H) challenger, a step below 150K level. Still, it was a very good win by Yuki and RamK and they were totally dominant till middle of second set. Next up is very tough match though against top seeds who are ATP tour level players in doubles.

At Aix-en-Provence Challenger 100, France ( Red Clay)

[QF] Ramkumar Ramanathan (IND) / Yuki Bhambri (IND) vs. (1) Austin Krajicek (USA) / Hugo Nys (MON)

Divij and his partner lost in first round though.

[R1] Divij Sharan (IND) / Artem Sitak (NZL) l. Rafael Matos (BRA) / David Vega Hernandez (ESP) 36 36

[sameerph]

In Prague challenger both our doubles pairs lost in first round.

AT Prague Challenger 2 , Czech Republic (Red Clay)

[R1] N. Sriram Balaji (IND) / Jeevan Neduncheziyan (IND) l. (4) Nicolas Monroe (USA) / Fernando Romboli (BRA) 67(5) 26

[R1] Vishnu Vaardhan (IND) / Grigory Lomakin (KAZ) l. Marius Copil (ROU) / Max Purcell (AUS) 46 36

[PKBasu]

Ramkumar plays Salvatore Caruso (ITA, 192) in R2 at about 2pm IST on 5th May. They have played each other 3 times, and Caruso has won all the matches, albeit narrowly. Hopefully, Ramkumar gets his revenge this week.
In doubles, RamK/Yuki play the top seeds Krajicek/Nys about 2 and a half hours later.

[Rajiv]

A nice win for Ram to move into the next round, in the last 2 maches has been playing the same way he played Kavcic which I told,  flat deep powerful strokes without loopy Top spins and more focus on serves, and the positives the Ufe's have come down drastically.

[PKBasu]

[R2] Ramkumar Ramanathan (IND,185) d. Salvatore Caruso (ITA,192) 64 36 75

Onto the quarterfinal for Ramkumar, who is reaching form on clay just in time for the French Open qualifiers.

Caruso has a career-high of 76 in singles from just half a year ago (November 2021). These are a couple of quality wins.

[prasen9]

Hope this is one of the Ram-Ram streaks starting! May it go long.

[arjun2761]

[QF] Ramkumar Ramanathan (IND) / Yuki Bhambri (IND) vs. (1) Austin Krajicek (USA) / Hugo Nys (MON) 6-3, 7-6(5)

Quality win over ATP quality pair by Yuki and Ramk. Nice win by RamK in singles as well.