Asia-Australia ATP Challengers 2022

[sameerph]

Finally challengers in Asia are back from next week after a long time. In the intervening period, only challengers in Asia were held in Kazakhstan and a couple in Bangalore in early this year.

Now, starting from Monday, there will be 3 challengers in Nothanburi, Thailand. These are of lowest level challenger 50 tournaments ( i.e gives 50 points for winner). Then there will be 3 challengers in Korea in October and 1 in Japan.

Prajnesh is in the singles main draw of Thailand challengers and Vishnu/Aniruddh are in the doubles main draw for first week.

Sid Rawat lost in Q1 in a close match while Manish yet to play his Q1 match.

[Q1] Siddharth Rawat (IND,543) l. (7) James McCabe (AUS,445) 36 76(4) 67(4)

[Q1] Manish Sureshkumar (IND,523) vs. (11) Kyrian Jacquet (FRA,467)

At Nothanburi Challenger 50, Thailand

[R1] Prajnesh Gunneswaran (IND,324) vs. Evgeny Donskoy (RUS,335)

[R1] Anirudh Chandrashekhar (IND) / Vishnu Vardhan (IND) vs. Toshihide Matsui (JPN) / Kaito Uesugi (JPN)

[jayakris]

And Manish lost his Q1 by a really poor 16 16 score. He won only around 1/3rd of the points and never had a BP while he got broken 5 times in 12 BPs. So only Gunner is there in singles at Nonthaburi. Wish Sid could've pulled off the upset yesterday. He must have played quite well.

[sameerph]

And Praj lost too in straight sets.

[R1] Prajnesh Gunneswaran (IND,324) l. Evgeny Donskoy (RUS,335) 36 36

Watched the last few games of the match and no consistency in Prajnesh's game, some good points but lot of errors too. Donskoy was much more solid.

[arjun2761]

Disappointing result as our players would do well in Asian challengers even when they were struggling in Europe and N America. Looks like Covid and injuries have disproportionally impacted our tennis players over the last two years.

[jayakris]

^^^ Well, Sumit and RamK are the two who are solidly at the challenger level but they didn't try to go there. Yuki is mostly getting done with singles, and Gunner seems to be pretty much on a down-slope in his career. I don't think Manish, and maybe Sid too, are at the challenger level at this point. But the Covid break didn't leave either any better than before, so it is like 2 lost years for them. Mukund was the one who could have tried to make use of this challenger, but he didn't go there either (but where is he, this week? why didn't he enter at Nonthaburi?).

But so it goes... Need to wait at least a couple of years (may be 4) for the next batch of players to start making some noise at challengers.

[Dinesh]

Mukund was supposed to play in Nonthaburi this week and was in the Q draw as the 4th seed but had to withdraw due to his final round match at Indonesia ITF.

[jayakris]

Oh, I forgot that. It puzzled me, because I had it in my mind that he was going to be at Nonthaburi. Yeah, the final at Jakarta made him miss this. I should have thought of that!

[PKBasu]

^^^ Well, Sumit and RamK are the two who are solidly at the challenger level but they didn't try to go there. Yuki is mostly getting done with singles,

But so it goes... Need to wait at least a couple of years (may be 4) for the next batch of players to start making some noise at challengers.

Sumit, RamK and Yuki of course are playing the US Open qualifiers this week. And Yuki has beaten the 9th seed there, world #107, former top-40 player Radu Albot in straight sets today (Albot is not over the hill at all: he made R3 at the AO singles this year, and made the QF at ATP Los Cabos earlier this month, beating Feliciano Lopez in R1). Yuki is not done with singles by any means, but will limit his singles appearances based on his fitness level.

[PKBasu]

Disheartening nonetheless that nobody is alive past R1 of singles, and no Indian even in the QF of doubles. For that to happen in a Challenger in Asia is pretty rare. Come on, Team India, get it together next week in Nonthaburi!

[sameerph]

True, but except for our real top 4 (Yuki, RamK, Sumit and Prajnesh) nobody has really been able to get any wins at challenger level. Sometimes Mukund but none below that. Only Prajnesh played here. Also in doubles our #10 and #11 played here as a team and they lost in a close match in first round.

[R1] Anirudh Chandrashekhar (IND) / Vishnu Vardhan (IND) l. Toshihide Matsui (JPN) / Kaito Uesugi (JPN) 76(8) 67(2) 4-10

[PKBasu]

I remembered that I played tennis with an American friend in Nonthaburi less than a couple of weeks ago (Saturday 13th August). Conditions there should be ideal for Indian players. My opponent was running around the court and sweating so much that he broke his big toe going for a cross-court shot...

[sameerph]

Both Sid Rawat and Manish Sureshkumar lost in first round of qualifying again against seeds. Sid lost 46 46 against 307th ranked top seed Brit Broom while Manish lost 46 62 14 retd against Australian 449th ranked Australian McCabe.

In main draw-

[R1] Prajnesh Gunneswaran (IND,321) vs. Omar Jasica (AUS,388)

[R1] Anirudh Chandrashekhar (IND) / Vishnu Vardhan (IND) vs. (4) Charles Broom (GBR) / Daniel Cukierman (ISR)

[sameerph]

And another first round loss for Prajnesh.

[R1] Prajnesh Gunneswaran (IND,321) l. Omar Jasica (AUS,388) 57 36

[sameerph]

Ok, we finally get our first win after 7 losses in these Thailand challengere as Vishnu and Aniruddh upset the fourth seeds in first round.

[R1] Anirudh Chandrashekhar (IND) / Vishnu Vardhan (IND) d. (4) Charles Broom (GBR) / Daniel Cukierman (ISR) 62 26 10-8

They play Australian pair of Omar Jasika and James McCabe in QF.

[sameerph]

Vishnu and Anirudh got a walkover in QF but lost in a very close match in SF.

[QF] Anirudh Chandrashekhar (IND) / Vishnu Vardhan (IND) d. Omar Jasika (AUS) / James McCabe (AUS) walkover

[SF] Anirudh Chandrashekhar (IND) / Vishnu Vardhan (IND) l. Francis Casey Alcantara (PHI) / Christopher Rungkat (INA) 62 46 9-11

Anirudh Chandrashekhar is now among 10 ranked Indians in doubles with a live ranking of 270 and he is relatively young for doubles at 24 as he turned doubles specialist early. Lets see how far he goes in doubles.