European Challengers 2022

[PKBasu]

All his career, his tour planning has been horrible. But he has generally done the rest of it quite fine, considering all the injuries and comebacks he has had. He is not a slacker. Just a poor planner!

Not playing the Futures singles in India last November (3) and especially early this year (another 3) was not just poor planning, it was slacking too. He was basically being too lazy to play -- or perhaps too proud to lose some matches. If he could enter the doubles, there was no reason he couldn't enter the singles (perhaps after a week or two). I saw him practicing in Delhi, and he could easily have played the singles in the final week in Gurgaon (Nov-Dec'21), and surely could have played the Futures and/or Challengers in India at the beginning of this year (especially since he had played and won a round at the AO qualifying).

[jayakris]

You have a point, PKB, about the Indian events. It was possible that he was trying to be overly-safe with injuries, or was too proud to play... He may have been simply slacking too! He should have played there, and a few points would have really helped. Simply stupid.

[PKBasu]

Having lost 3 years, it was especially important to keep building his points total. In his last comeback, he began by winning a Futures in Hong Kong. This time, he was too proud to play the Futures -- even on home turf. The other excuse possibly is that he was preserving his fragile body for the Slams. But playing Futures singles surely won't tax him too much. I think he will beat the likes of Sid Rawat and Manish quite comfortably any day. There were so many opportunities to pick up relatively easy points if he wanted to revive a serious singles career -- but he simply didn't take them.

I don't think Yuki realizes that he is currently a footnote in Indian tennis history. Winning a Slam junior singles title is a nice feather in the cap, but it is still a footnote. He has never won a Slam singles match, so his Challenger titles will be a slight footnote -- and maybe he will have a decent doubles career (which will still be a footnote unless he wins Slam doubles titles). A promising career that went nowhere because of absolutely horrible planning/scheduling.

[Atithee]

I don't think Yuki realizes that he is currently a footnote in Indian tennis history. Winning a Slam junior singles title is a nice feather in the cap, but it is still a footnote. He has never won a Slam singles match, so his Challenger titles will be a slight footnote -- and maybe he will have a decent doubles career (which will still be a footnote unless he wins Slam doubles titles). A promising career that went nowhere because of absolutely horrible planning/scheduling.

Well said. Yuki has been a footnote for a long time. Only this forum has supported him for very long. I’ve never been a big fan as he never showed me that he has what it takes as a complete player, which includes fitness.

[PKBasu]

Both Saketh and Arjun predictably lost in Q1 of singles. Very surprised that Saketh is using his PR to play singles qualifiers in clay Challengers.

[PKBasu]

I don't think Yuki realizes that he is currently a footnote in Indian tennis history. Winning a Slam junior singles title is a nice feather in the cap, but it is still a footnote. He has never won a Slam singles match, so his Challenger titles will be a slight footnote -- and maybe he will have a decent doubles career (which will still be a footnote unless he wins Slam doubles titles). A promising career that went nowhere because of absolutely horrible planning/scheduling.

Well said. Yuki has been a footnote for a long time. Only this forum has supported him for very long. I’ve never been a big fan as he never showed me that he has what it takes as a complete player, which includes fitness.

I think this forum has been right to support him. His body has not cooperated (particularly the knee), but we have always recognized that he was a special talent, with excellent tennis abilities (except for the first serve). Sadly, he has never had a full injury-free year on tour ever. This is a very difficult way to make a living: struggle 9 months to go from the 600s to 88 or 82 in the rankings, and then get injured again, stay out for 6 months and start anew (as happened twice in his career before this latest interruption). The last 3 year break due to the uncertain knee injury (and then a Covid infection in the US just as his comeback was gaining momentum) was just sheer bad luck. They took away what would have been Yuki's prime years. So I empathize with him, and admire the tenacity he has shown in coming back despite those injury/illness woes. But his planning (of singles) has been woeful this year -- unless he has quietly decided to abandon singles (which itself would be a myopic decision, in my opinion).

[arjun2761]

But his planning (of singles) has been woeful this year -- unless he has quietly decided to abandon singles (which itself would be a myopic decision, in my opinion).

Based on the amount of doubles he's playing while actively avoiding singles, I think that he isn't confident that he can play a lot of singles before injuring himself again. So, he is essentially looking at using his singles PR to play the bigger events and perhaps reevaluate where is at after that both from a tennis and fitness perspective (hoping that time causes further healing). In the meanwhile, he's probably at least actively thinking that his tennis future is in doubles and hence he's going all the way to Ecuador to play doubles.

[sameerph]

Both our pairs their first round matches in straight sets in Prostejov.

At Prostejov Challenger 100, Czech Republic (Clay)

[R1] Yuki Bhambri (IND) / Saketh Myneni (IND) d. Luca Margaroli (SUI) / Vitali Sachko (UKR) 75 63

[R1] N. Sriram Balaji (IND) / Arjun Kadhe (IND) d. (4) Fabrien Fallert (GER) / Luis David Martinez (VEN) 63 64

Next,

[QF] Yuki Bhambri (IND) / Saketh Myneni (IND) vs. (3) Denys Molchanov (UKR) / Franko Skugor (CRO)

[QF] N. Sriram Balaji (IND) / Arjun Kadhe (IND) vs. (WC) Vit Kopriva (CZE) / Jaroslav Posipisil (CZE)

[prashanthm]

[QF] Yuki Bhambri (IND) / Saketh Myneni (IND) d. (3) Denys Molchanov (UKR) / Franko Skugor (CRO) 76(4) 36 13-11

Great comeback win for Yuki/Saki after saving 3 match points and converting their second match point to win 13-11 in the match tie-break and move to the Semis...

[sameerph]

Skugor was a quarterfinalist at French open only last year. So, this is an excellent win for our pair.

[PKBasu]

Yes, Skugor is a 2-time semifinalist in doubles at Wimbledon (2017 and '18) and made the FO QF last year, so he is a top-quality doubles player. Molchanov (who lost in singles to Yuki at the Fergana Challenger ten years ago) is now ranked 89 in doubles, after winning the ATP Marseilles doubles title (partnering Rublev) earlier this season. So this is a very strong pair to be playing against in a Challenger, and Yuki/Saketh did very well to pull off this narrow win. The third Challenger SF for this pair (which went on to take the title on one of those occasions) and the fourth this year for Yuki (who also made one with Ramkumar). This pair have also made three Challenger QFs this year (and won two Futures doubles titles in 2022, following one at the end of last year).

[PKBasu]

[QF] N. Sriram Balaji (IND) / Arjun Kadhe (IND) d. (WC) Vit Kopriva (CZE) / Jaroslav Posipisil (CZE) 63 62

[PKBasu]

That takes Arjun to his career-high doubles ranking of 159. Balaji is 154.
Divij (still to play his R1 at Surbiton against the top seeds) is 169, just ahead of Saketh at 174. Purav (inactive this week, commentating for SonyLiv instead) is at 186.
Yuki is edging up, but still well down at 252.

Ramkumar, yet to begin his doubles campaign at Surbiton, is at a career-high ranking of 75 in doubles.

[sameerph]

They both have tough matches in the SF against top 2 seeds.

At Prostejov Challenger 100, Czech Republic (Clay)

[SF] Yuki Bhambri (IND) / Saketh Myneni (IND) vs. (1) Alexander Erler (AUT) / Lucas Miedler (AUT)

[SF] N. Sriram Balaji (IND) / Arjun Kadhe (IND) vs. (2) Roman Jebavy (CZE) / Andrez Martin (SVK)

[prashanthm]

to both the teams tomorrow in anticipation of an all-indian final