N.American Hard court Challengers 2022

[sameerph]

Opening a thread for US hard court season challengers which begins next week in Lexington. Mukund has made it to the main draw this week.

Pairs of Yuki-Saketh and Divij-Purav are in the doubles draw and Saketh is playing singles qualies. Yuki has not entered singles.


At Lexington Challengers 80, USA

Singles

[Q1] Saketh Myneni (IND,842) vs. (4) Strong Kircheeimer (USA,530)

[R1] Sasikumar Mukund (IND,425) vs. Mikael Torpegaard (DEN,480)

Doubles

[R1] (2) Yuki Bhambri (IND) / Saketh Myneni (IND) vs. (WC) Millien Hurrion (GBR) / JJ Mercer (USA)

[R1] Purav Raja (IND) / Divij Sharan (IND) vs. Alternates

Karman is also in Lexington playing womens 60K tournament. So, lot of Indian players in Lexington this week.

[Rajiv]

So it appears Yuki got his USA visa within few days upon arrival in India.
If only he had had shown this diligence when first applying then the saga which happened couple of weeks back could have well been avoided and would have been able to play at New Port ,Indy, and possibly even Atlanta .
Or this was his original planned playing schedule in the first place

[sameerph]

I am not really not sure if he is interested in playing singles any more. Washington ATP qualifying draw cut has gone down so much that he would have got in as an alternate on his current ranking ( not PR), still it seems he chose not to play there even though he was in DC yesterday as per his insta update.

[sanjay8886]

In fact, he would have made in to singles main draw in Los Cabos. Just before that, he withdrew from singles Alt List. Totally agree, he seems to have given up his singles career in favor of doubles. Still, he keeps collecting data by entering and withdrawing from singles entry list. Yuki knows the best, the rationale behind that.

[PKBasu]

Yuki still has severe pain in his knees and elsewhere. He doesn't speak about all this much, but this is the reason he withdrew from singles after winning a couple of good matches (FQR against 2014 USO junior champ and R1 against 2009 Wimbledon junior champ) in the last Challenger singles he played. I suspect his body allows him to play 2 singles matches in a tournament, not more. Which is why he has been playing doubles mainly (as he can do that without too much pain). He hasn't given up on his singles career, but needs to be judicious about where he uses his PR. I suspect he didn't play singles at the Citi Open because he didn't have enough days of rest (after the flight into the US) to be able to give his best. (He rarely answers my questions about scheduling, but I can piece some of this together from other stray remarks he has made).

His visa situation is a bit more complicated than I had realized. He's worked out an interim solution. I will leave it at that, and will not respond to any speculative comments on this

And Yuki's Schengen visa also expires in early-September, so he needed to get a new one in order to play the Davis Cup in Norway.

[jayakris]

^^^ Thanks PKB for that update. I feel better for not being too vocal in criticizing Yuki. I had always felt that there were some reasons that we are not fully aware of, for why he has struggled on the tour for such a long time while talent deficiencies never looked like the reason. Unfortunate. I hope he can still build a doubles career at the top levels though.

[sameerph]

Thanks, PKB for that update. That is why I feel his singles career seems more or less over. Maybe he will only play a few matches here and there till his PR or regular ranking allows him. But, after that doubles would be his focus.

Anyway, yesterday Divij got in as an alternate in the qualifying draw and almost beat the second seed there. After all he has not forgotton how to play when there is no one else on the same side of the court.

[Q1] (Alt) Divij Sharan (IND,1406) l. (2) Gage Brymer (USA,461) 36 75 67(3)

[Q1] Saketh Myneni (IND,934) l. (4) Strong Kirchheimer (USA,550) 16 16

[Dinesh]

Karman, the top seed was supposed to play her first round match in the qualifying draw today but was replaced by an alternate, which indicates someone from the main draw would have withdrawn today. Hope she takes advantage of this direct main draw opportunity this week at Lexington, as the entry lists for the US ITFs next couple weeks look impossible for her to even get into Q.

[arjun2761]

^^^ Thanks PKB for that update. I feel better for not being too vocal in criticizing Yuki. I had always felt that there were some reasons that we are not fully aware of, for why he has struggled on the tour for such a long time while talent deficiencies never looked like the reason. Unfortunate. I hope he can still build a doubles career at the top levels though.

Even without inside knowledge, it was pretty clear that he did not have the pain free fitness to play singles without high risk of reaggravating his injury. Doubles in much less likely to cause injury and you can play to a much later age, so it made sense that he was prioritizing doubles. Hope he is successful in that as he has the tools to be a top 40 doubles player with good partner (one is who is good at the net and thus can can help defend his only weakness - his serve).

I know that PKB did not want to speculate but here goes anyway. I wonder if he perhaps looking to shift his base to US given that he has at least one sister that is US based.

[sameerph]

Mukund started with a win.

[R1] Sasikumar Mukund (IND,425) d. Mikael Torpegaard (DEN,480) 36 60 41 retd.

First challenger main draw win for Mukund since January when he reached a challenger final. He is most likely to meet top seed though in the next round.

[sameerph]

Mukund lost against tops seed after decent fight and both our doubles pairs went thru to QF.

At Lexington Challengers 80, USA

[R2] Sasikumar Mukund (IND,425) l. (1) Roman Safiullin (RUS,124) 36 67(3)

[R1] (2) Yuki Bhambri (IND) / Saketh Myneni (IND) d. (WC) Millien Hurrion (GBR) / JJ Mercer (USA) 46 63 10-6

[R1] Purav Raja (IND) / Divij Sharan (IND) won by a walkover

Next,

[QF] (2) Yuki Bhambri (IND) / Saketh Myneni (IND) vs. Nicolas Mejia (COL) / Andres Urrea (COL)

[QF] Purav Raja (IND) / Divij Sharan (IND) vs. (4) Ruben Gonzalez (PHI) / Resse Stalder (USA)

[Dinesh]

Purav and Divij came back from a set and a rain-interrupted match to seal a win in the QF match against the #4 seeds at the Lexington CH today. If Yuki/Saki wins their QF, we will have an assured Indian pair in the finals this week.

[QF] Purav Raja (IND) / Divij Sharan (IND) 3-6 7-6 10-6 (4) Ruben Gonzalez (PHI) / Resse Stalder (USA)

[sameerph]

It was an all Indian semi final which too was played today and Yuki-Saketh are thru to yet another final.

At Lexington Challenger 80, USA

[QF] (2) Yuki Bhambri (IND) / Saketh Myneni (IND) d. Nicolas Mejia (COL) / Andres Urrea (COL) 61 64

[SF] (2) Yuki Bhambri (IND) / Saketh Myneni (IND) d. Purav Raja (IND) / Divij Sharan (IND) 64 63

Next,

[F] (2) Yuki Bhambri (IND) / Saketh Myneni (IND) vs. Gijs Brouwer (NED) / Aidan McHugh (GBR)

[sameerph]

Yuki- Saketh win 4th challenger title of the year.

At Lexington Challenger 80, USA

[F] (2) Yuki Bhambri (IND) / Saketh Myneni (IND) d. Gijs Brouwer (NED) / Aidan McHugh (GBR) 36 64 10-8

Saketh at #117 in live rankings, Yuki at #138.

[arjun2761]

Yuki equals his previous career high in doubles. Saketh very close to his previous career high of 113.