Maharashtra Open, Pune, ATP 250, Jan 2-7, 2023

[jayakris]

The highlights "are not available in your country"... So it says in the US.

[Atithee]

^^If you go to their Twitter handle, you can watch some (maybe all). Watch this superb rally. He’s only 15 years old? Doesn’t look like a typical Indian 15 year old kid. Quite impressive at this age. Lacks depth in shots (based on this rally alone) but has lots of time to get better.



Try this too:
https://mobile.twitter.com/maharashtraopen

[Sanjay]

I am going to put the 15 year old kid on my watch list.

I've already given up on the 30+ crowd.

I hope some of the moneybags in India like Ambani/Adani can sponsor these kids in a more systematic way so that we get some results.

[sameerph]

RamK lost after winning the first set and Mukund lost in straight sets to end our singles challenge.

[R1] (Q) Ramkumar Ramanathan (IND,435) l. Pedro Martinez (ESP,62) 63 57 36

From the stats, first serve % seems to have made all the difference. 46% for RamK and 68% for Pedro. Otherwise, RamK was better on points won on first serve and only slightly worse on points won second serve.
Overall, pretty good performance this week by RamK in singles.

[R1] (WC) Sasikumar Mukund (IND,340) l. (Q) Flavio Cobollo (ITA,171) 46 57

[Omkara]

RamK taking revenge on Bops

[jayakris]

^^^ Match is not over. 76(5) 66 lead for RamK so far, but need to win a tiebreaker or STB, sill.

Update: Bops wins the second set tiebreaker 7-4... So, all even and on to an STB

Update: And RamK wins it, 11-9...

[R1] Ramkumar Ramanathan (IND)/ Miguel Angel Reyes-Varela (MEX) d. Rohan Bopanna (IND)/ Botic van de Zandschulp (NED), 76(5) 67(4) 11-9

[prashanthm]

Loved how RamK was smiling on the court today.... Haven't seen that from him before..... And a nice win for his team today to start off the year...

[prashanthm]

Saki/Yuki choked away to lose their R1 doubles match... They were up a break in both sets, managed to win the tie-break in the first set, but lost the second set 5-7 after being up 4-2... and the MTB was weird, I think the first 5-6 points all went against the serve and Saki started off with two DFs...

[R1] Yuki Bhambri / Saketh Myneni l. (3) Sadio Doumbia / Fabien Reboul 76(1) 57 7-10

And last minute ALT pair of Bala/G1 made the most of it by winning comfortably against compatriots Purav/Divij...

[R1] (Alt) N.Sriram Balaji / Jeevan Nedunchezhiyan d. (WC) Purav Raja / Divij Sharan 64 63

[jayakris]

Loved how RamK was smiling on the court today.... Haven't seen that from him before..... And a nice win for his team today to start off the year...

So glad to hear that. Really, that is what he needs to do. Smile a lot more and stop becoming negative about anything on court. Just let things go. Play free. Be the RamK that he can be.

[arjun2761]

Saki/Yuki choked away to lose their R1 doubles match... They were up a break in both sets, managed to win the tie-break in the first set, but lost the second set 5-7 after being up 4-2... and the MTB was weird, I think the first 5-6 points all went against the serve and Saki started off with two DFs...

[R1] Yuki Bhambri / Saketh Myneni l. (3) Sadio Doumbia / Fabien Reboul 76(1) 57 7-10

Unfortunately, this seems to happen in a fair number of their matches. They have the quality to beat a lot of the lower tier ATP level pairs but seemingly lack the consistency to do it consistently. It's something they need to find a way to fix, otherwise they will have a tough time regularly getting into ATP draws.

[jayakris]

^^^ Very much true. I have felt for the last few events that they are not improving. Thy are really not looking like a team that could go into the top-50 in individual doubles rankings, so far. I think Yuki and RamK need to play together seriously and see where they can get. They are the best two players, on potential to be great. Between them,in my opinion, they have all the tools needed.

[Atithee]

^^^Part of the tool kit includes emotional intelligence and physical fitness too. Do RR and YB have that in their respective tool kits? I’d argue not; else, they would have achieved much higher success in singles. Doubles maybe a bit more forgiving but can a leopard change its spots? Let alone two of them??

[Rajiv]

Whatever Rohan's supporters may justify with a tally of reasons, in the end Rohan was wrong .. period ..and by not teaming up ended up losing 250 points and in the end poetic justice was delivered to Ram with this dbls win.

In the short term future tie up's on the tour look unlikely, but one possibility could be the Davis Cup against Denmark in few weeks unless a BCCI type mystery injury which happened against Norway last Sept reappears.

[prasen9]

The highlights "are not available in your country"... So it says in the US.

Change your country ...

(using a VPN extension for your browser maybe?)

[jayakris]

^^^ I should get myself a good VPN account (which I have said many times, but never done )

One result from Indians today:

[R1] (WC) Arjun Kadhe (IND)/ Fernando Romboli (BRA) l. (2) Nathaniel Lammons (USA)/ Jackson Withrow (USA), 67(6) 26

Now, two doubles QF matches remain for Indians tomorrow. RamK/Reyes-Varela against the top seed Ram/Salisbury, and Jeevan/Balaji against the 2nd seeds Lammons/Withrow. Tough to see an Indian being alive past the QF, but an upset by either team would be tremendous!