This is a forum where users can follow various tournaments that have Indian participation or are held in India. GrandSlams and Davis Cup should also be discussed here.
Mukund is playing Rishabh Agarwal in R1 and is unable to put him away. It is 5-5 in set 1.
Edit 1: Mukund loses the first set 5-7. Edit 2: Mukund is as upset as I am! He is up a break in the second set. It is 3-0 with Rishabh serving. Edit 3: Mukund wins the second set 6-3. On to the decider. In another R1 match, Dalwinder Singh beats Yann Wojcik 6-4 6-4.
Well done Rishabh. He along with many other Indians like Dalwinder Singh, Abhinav Shanmugam, Manish Sureshkumar suffered due to the pandemic break. All of them are around 25-26 years and do have a chance to get past their previous highs from a few years back. It is entirely possible that one or two may emerge from this group and enter the challenger level and even the ATP level.
I'm surprised Mukund struggled to beat Rishabh Agarwal, who (I'm afraid) I wasn't at all impressed by when I saw him play in Delhi. He lacks much power in his strokes or serve, but is a good volleyer. I think he will have better success in doubles. (I was expecting him to be a much stronger player, so was perhaps particularly disappointed with his play; perhaps it was a bad week for him, and he can do better... ).
Some excellent wins today by Indians over foreign opponents, most notably Adil Kalyanpur beating the 3rd seeded Austrian, and Nitin Sinha beating a Frenchman. Very nice to see the Indian players coming into their own.
Ishaque Eqbal beat a British fellow qualifier, Sid Rawat thrashed his Kazakh opponent 62 60, Dalwinder (IND, 1073) beat Wojcik (POL, 975).
[R1] (1) Sasikumar Mukund (IND,369) d. Rishab Agarwal (IND,1033) 57 63 62
[R1] Abhinav Sanjeev Shanmugam (IND,996) d. (WC) Tathagat Charantimath (IND,NR) 62 61
[R1] (Q) Paras Dahiya (IND,1382) d. S D Prajwal Dev (IND,955) 67(5) 76(3) 64
[R1] Maks Kasnikowski (POL,969) d. (6) Robert Strombachs (GER,767) 61 64
[R1] (Q) Adil Kalyanpur (IND,1329) d. (3) Lukas Krainer (AUT,592) 46 62 63
[R1] (Q) Digvijay Pratap Singh (IND,1239) d. Dev Javia (IND,1090) 76(4) 61
[R1] Dalwinder Singh (IND,1073) d. Yann Wojcik (POL,975) 64 64
[R1] (5) Arjun Kadhe (IND,668) d. (Q) Rishi Reddy (IND,1308) 64 62
[R1] (8) Julian Cash (GBR,873) d. Constantin Bittoun Kouzmine (FRA,922) 76(1) 64
[R1] Nitin Kumar Sinha (IND,888) d. Enzo Wallart (FRA,925) 26 64 63
[R1] (Q) Daisuke Sumizawa (JPN,1144) d. Nicolas Tepmahc (FRA,1030) 61 75
[R1] (4) Manish Sureshkumar (IND,662) d. Anirudh Chandrasekar (IND,1326) 64 63
[R1] (7) Niki Kaliyanda Poonacha (IND,840) d. (WC( Vishnu Vardhan (IND,1382) 36 62 76(5)
[R1] Nishant Dabas (IND,NR) d. (WC) Nikshep Ballekere Ravikumar (IND,NR) 61 76(10)
[R1] (Q) Ishaque Eqbal (IND,1233) d. (Q) Alexis Canter (GBR,1198) 76(5) 63
[R1] (2) Sidharth Rawat (IND,585) d. Dostanbek Tashbulatov (KAZ,921) 62 60
So, 8 of the 11 foreign players who were in the draw got knocked out in first round. 3 foreign players remain in the draw. Hope Nitin, Manish and Paras take them out in second round.
Mukund struggling today against Abhinav Shanmugam, who won the first set 76(8). Mukund came back to take the second 7-5, and is ahead 4-2 in the third.
Nitin Sinha lost in 3 sets to 8th seed Julian Cash (GBR), while Arjun easily beat Dalwinder 60 63.
Sid Rawat vs Ishaque Eqbal will be a good match. I watched Sid win their match in New Delhi (the first set went to a tiebreaker, but he won the second 6-1), and also watched the terrific QF match between them in Gurugram which Ishaque won.
Mukund won the third set 6-3 to go through to the QF.
Sid Rawat beat Ishaque 64 75 to take a 2-1 lead in their head-to-head contest over the past 4 months.
Niki Poonacha beat Nishant Dabas after getting bageled in the first set: 06 62 62.
Digvijay Pratap Singh beat Adil 63 76(2).
Manish leads a Japanese qualifier 6-3, 3-2.
[R2] (1) Sasikumar Mukund (IND,369) d. Abhinav Sanjeev Shanmugam (IND,996) 67(8) 75 63
[R2] Maks Kasnikowski (POL,969) d. (Q) Paras Dahiya (IND,1382) 64 61
[R2] (Q) Digvijay Pratap Singh (IND,1239) d. (Q) Adil Kalyanpur (IND,1329) 63 76(2)
[R2] (5) Arjun Kadhe (IND,668) d. Dalwinder Singh (IND,1073) 60 63
[R2] (8) Julian Cash (GBR,873) d. Nitin Kumar Sinha (IND,888) 46 63 62
[R2] (4) Manish Sureshkumar (IND,662) d. (Q) Daisuke Sumizawa (JPN,1144) 63 76(3)
[R2] (7) Niki Kaliyanda Poonacha (IND,840) d. Nishant Dabas (IND,NR) 06 62 62
[R2] (2) Sidharth Rawat (IND,585) d. (Q) Ishaque Eqbal (IND,1233) 64 75
6 Indians in QF. 6 of the top 8 seeds make it thru to QF. Mukund is just about beating these lowly ranked players though. Typical of him. Beats some really good players at challenger level and struggles against nobodys at futures level. Next match against Polish player could be trouble for him if he continues this form.
Good to see that the Indians are holding their own in these futures. However, was hoping to see some of the younger players make a breakthrough. The Indians doing well here have been around the block and have relatively low ceilings. Some of them had taken a step back due to Covid and are gradually taking that step back. Among them Kadhe seems to playing at a level which may be better than what he had previously shown in singles.
@arjun We need a large pool of players in the range 200-500 so that a few top players can emerge. So I am okay with low-ceiling players who get to rankings in that range. The quality of our local tournaments will definitely pick up.
Arjun,Manish and Sid are in SF for second consecutive week. Last week Sid thrashed Manish, lets see what happens tomorrow. Like last week Arjun is playing a foreign player in the SF. Hope he wins like last week.
In doubles, Yuki-Saketh lost in the SF against pair of Mukund and Vishnu. They will meet top seeded pair of Cash and Arjun.
I happened to be in Bangalore, so I dropped in to watch the semis. Was late to watch arjun Kadhe agai t the polish player, watched him win the se ond set, settled in to watch the third.
Coming in fresh after watching the dallas at 250, I can see one big difference, arjun has a nice game, good serve, but his footspeed is just not there. All the skills are there to break through. Frustrating to see no big killer shot, and unwillingness to chase down every single ball. Luckily the polish guy wS not much better, but he wS running down more balls though. And Arjun was outmaneuvering him which was good to see
After a good lunch at my favorite haunt, Koshys,I was back to witness the final stages of the sid rawat manish
SureshkumR match. Ma is looked tired and unwilling to hang in the point and create openings - took me two minutes to figure out that Rawat was going to win
I happened to be in Bangalore, so I dropped in to watch the semis. Was late to watch arjun Kadhe agai t the polish player, watched him win the se ond set, settled in to watch the third.
Coming in fresh after watching the dallas at 250, I can see one big difference, arjun has a nice game, good serve, but his footspeed is just not there. All the skills are there to break through. Frustrating to see no big killer shot, and unwillingness to chase down every single ball. Luckily the polish guy wS not much better, but he wS running down more balls though. And Arjun was outmaneuvering him which was good to see
After a good lunch at my favorite haunt, Koshys,I was back to witness the final stages of the sid rawat manish
SureshkumR match. Ma is looked tired and unwilling to hang in the point and create openings - took me two minutes to figure out that Rawat was going to win
Hanging around for the doubles to start. I'll only be watching for a few minutes though since I have a game at 4pm at the Bangalore Club
I am disappointed with Manish these days. Expected him to be one of our next challenger level player at least by now. But, his game seems to have stagnated. Sid Rawat easily beat him in semi final in both the week.
Arjun won the doubles title along with Julien Cash. He is on a 13 match unbeaten run in last 2 weeks ( singles and doubles). Lets see if he takes it to 14 tomorrow.
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