India Challenger100s, February-March 2023

[arjun2761]

I am wondering if it is really age or something else. His running is good, his stroking from the baseline is superb, volleys, serve, overhead are all top class. But he is making tactical errors at key points. I feel like he is either not getting the right advice from his coach (some strange Thai name on his profile) or he is not listening to the right advice. He is a very articulate guy - I heard him talking to his friends after the match.

Prajnesh made the finals in 2019 and SF in 2018, the last 2 times the Challengers were played here. Yuki (winner), Ramk(Rup), and Saketh (SF) were 3 of the 4 SFs in 2017. So, these are likely relatively quick courts which the Indians used to thrive on in the past.

Agree that Prajnesh has a very solid all round game but not quite sure about his quickness (both foot speed and reflexes). Those do go down with age and I don't think those were his strengths to begin with, so perhaps age is a factor in his results now.

Full credit to Sumit for gutting out a win in a surface that doesn't favor his style of play. He may not be the smartest player out there but he gives it his all every time. Good luck on the next round. I think he will need to claw and fight to win again....

[jayakris]

My fellow alumni Jayant Sinha (and his dad) are tennis fans. Not sure how much political clout they have now though...

You mean Jayant Sinha, former union finance minister of state, and Yashwant Sinha's son? Yeah, I guess the dad is in the black list now but Jayant Sinha hasn't left BJP. Actually he has been strongly speaking the BJP party line on various things. But he seems to be not in the news for a while. Maybe looking for something less controversial to get into? Maybe tennis? If you are in touch, talk to him and say that Indian tennis is dying and looking for a champion!!

His constituency (Hazaribagh, Jharkhand) has no tennis connection though. The state itself. But that could be an opportunity to start something. Perhaps he can help set up our national tennis coaching center in Jharkhand. How about a Dhoni-Sinha-Tata-Steel National Tennis Center in Jamshedpur? He can also try to make it the first center that introduces tribal players in the Jharkhad/Bihar/Chattisgarh area to tennis, for more political mileage!

[arjun2761]

My fellow alumni Jayant Sinha (and his dad) are tennis fans. Not sure how much political clout they have now though...

You mean Jayant Sinha, former union finance minister of state, and Yashwant Sinha's son? Yeah, I guess the dad is in the black list now but Jayant Sinha hasn't left BJP. Actually he has been strongly speaking the BJP party line on various things. But he seems to be not in the news for a while. Maybe looking for something less controversial to get into? Maybe tennis? If you are in touch, talk to him and say that Indian tennis is dying and looking for a champion!!

His constituency (Hazaribagh, Jharkhand) has no tennis connection though. The state itself. But that could be an opportunity to start something. Perhaps he can help set up our national tennis coaching center in Jharkhand. How about a Dhoni-Sinha-Tata-Steel National Tennis Center in Jamshedpur? He can also try to make it the first center that introduces tribal players in the Jharkhad/Bihar/Chattisgarh area to tennis, for more political mileage!

Pretty creative ideas above! Unfortunately, I last met him a couple of decades ago in a couple of TiE conferences when he was a management consultant in the US. I do think that he is enterprising enough that he could do some good if someone with money (like the Tatas with their local or at least state roots) partnered with him.

[Sanjay]

I wonder why some ultra-rich businessman like Ambani or Adani can't throw a few millions into this. They won't even miss the cash and can get a lot of kudos. Maybe they feel the organization is corrupt and the officials will eat the money. If some trustworthy tennis person like Vijay or Leander or someone is willing to do the work, maybe these moneybags may put down the cash.

This also may have some political angles. They won't put down the cash, unless Vijay or Leander can show them BJP connections. They can't. Correct me if I am wrong, but only very few in our tennis fraternity - almost none among the organizer types and former players - seem to be BJP-leaning people. We haven't had that many former players from Gujarat and the BJP-belt states like UP, MP, etc, I guess ... The congress party had many tennis lovers over the years, and most of the tennis hubs in India are in opposition areas, except Bengaluru now (but Bengaluru tennis was congress-run even from SM Krishna days, no?)... Kolkata, Chennai, Hyderabad, and so on. Even Mumbai/Pune are not BJP strongholds. Kinda same in the Delhi hub, where tennis is generally in Haryana (I am not up on the politics there). Anyway, the BJP politicians just don't seem to be into tennis. Sumanta Biswa Sarma for instance was (and still is?) bigtime into badminton. Anurag Thakur, the current sports minister, is big into cricket as a BCCI secretary once, and also into table tennis, basketball, etc, but has shown no interest in tennis that I can discern. These guys were national federations president, secretary, etc, and all that too. But where is the BJP guy in tennis?

That may be a very amateur-like analysis (just something I thought about this morning!), but there could be some bits of truth to it.

We need somebody to take leadership before Indian tennis totally dies. We are at some sort of a critical juncture. Can we get Somdev to go join BJP or something? ... We need tennis-lover politicians in all parties, not just the opposition.

I am from Mysore, and back in the 90s, Mysore was a big hub for Indian tennis. One day in 1994-95, I met Prahlad Srinath when I was at a friend's house. He was going to play tennis and we were chatting outside and he knew my friend and stopped to say hi. I think he was in the Davis Cup team at that time.

One big name from Mysore is coach Raghuveer NP. He used to play in the mid 80s and was India No 3 at one point. He is trained as a coach under Nick Bollettieri and has coached Seles, Agassi and a few other big names. Neeth Devaiah is another name along with P Srinath himself who has an academy in BLR. KA is a BJP state as well. If not big names like Vijay/LP, start with India level players. Start small and build up.

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[Sanjay]

We badly need a politician to get behind Indian tennis, like Karti Chidambaram at one time. AITA does nothing, and never did anything to help anybody much. That is a just a family business that only does enough not to upset people badly enough, thus preventing others ganging against them. Seemingly, India never gets a tennis lover as a sports minister either.

I wonder why some ultra-rich businessman like Ambani or Adani can't throw a few millions into this. They won't even miss the cash and can get a lot of kudos. Maybe they feel the organization is corrupt and the officials will eat the money. If some trustworthy tennis person like Vijay or Leander or someone is willing to do the work, maybe these moneybags may put down the cash.

I don’t know if you guys remember but BAT (Britannia Amritraj Tennis) started just this way. My cousin’s husband Ashok Ramaswami was the MD of Britannia at the time -early 80s- and he got Britannia to sponsor the whole thing. Chandra was brought in as head coach and Leander was one of the first students. I remember visiting the place and hitting a few balls with some of the kids -Ashok had asked me to drop in. We will have to do something similar again.

Yes, I remember BAT in the 80s. I don't know why it was wound up. If it could product LP/MB level players, no reason why we can't have Top 50 or Top 20 players.

[Rajiv]

^^^ BAT wound up because it was totally bank rolled by the Britannia chief Rajan Nair , but once Rajan Nair got embroiled in murky legal issue's which eventually led to his arrest and imprisonment and later sadly died in the Tihar jail itself and with his death the funding automatically stopped and the BAT system eventually wound up.

[Rajiv]

My fellow alumni Jayant Sinha (and his dad) are tennis fans. Not sure how much political clout they have now though...

You mean Jayant Sinha, former union finance minister of state, and Yashwant Sinha's son? Yeah, I guess the dad is in the black list now but Jayant Sinha hasn't left BJP. Actually he has been strongly speaking the BJP party line on various things. But he seems to be not in the news for a while. Maybe looking for something less controversial to get into? Maybe tennis? If you are in touch, talk to him and say that Indian tennis is dying and looking for a champion!!

His constituency (Hazaribagh, Jharkhand) has no tennis connection though. The state itself. But that could be an opportunity to start something. Perhaps he can help set up our national tennis coaching center in Jharkhand. How about a Dhoni-Sinha-Tata-Steel National Tennis Center in Jamshedpur? He can also try to make it the first center that introduces tribal players in the Jharkhad/Bihar/Chattisgarh area to tennis, for more political mileage!

Amongst BJP there is one politician tennis supporters which is Phadnavis , but i believe he is not actively involved but indirectly through his wife and she is quite visible in promoting Tennis at the Pune ATP and instrumental in getting the state sponsorship for the Pune ATP , and also the impending ATP Challenger in Nagpur which is in the works is at Pahdnavis's hometown which clearly has Phadnavis's or rather his wife's foot prints on it.

[sameerph]

So, all three Indians won the first set, and started the second set by dropping serve. That is a pattern we have seen more often than not.

Same thing happened today. Sumit won the first set 6-4 but lost his serve in very first game of the second set and Palan has kept that advantage to take the second set 6-3.

Again lot of points won on first serve - 80% by Sumit, 82% by Palan. Only 1 break of serve for each player.

Clearly it is a fast surface which does not suit Sumit's game . Lets see how he does in third set.

[prasen9]

^^^ BAT wound up because it was totally bank rolled by the Britannia chief Rajan Nair , but once Rajan Nair got embroiled in murky legal issue's which eventually led to his arrest and imprisonment and later sadly died in the Tihar jail itself and with his death the funding automatically stopped and the BAT system eventually wound up.

Thanks. Actually, this should read Rajan Pillai. Rajan Nair was a mobster. Pillai was merely a fraudster. Though he was no saint and deserved to be jailed in Singapore, where he or his business was based, perhaps, Pillai's death pointed out a failing of our system. A 14 year sentence should not be turned into a pre-mature death sentence. Prisoners should be provided medical help. Also, he supposedly died of asphyxiation. Why? Mistreatment or murder needs to be rooted out. There possibly have been some fixes but I don't think it has fixed the system much.

[sameerph]

And Sumit loses his serve in the first game of the third set . Down 0-2 . Not looking good.

[rajitghosh]

Among the politicans Bhupender Hooda from Haryana was passionate about tennis and once even played an exhibition set with Boris Becker. Not sure how much he contributed to administration though. Leander is a member of the TMC but again not sure whether he is very active.

[sameerph]

All over for us in singles here.

[R2] (WC) Sumit Nagal (IND,387) l. (Q) Dominik Palan (CZE,412) 64 36 46

Whatever be the court conditions, this is a disappointing loss for Sumit.

[PKBasu]

Sumit lost 64 36 46.

He is clearly our only competitive singles player currently, but even he has his limitations. Like all the other Indian players currently, he isn't really able to sustain his good level of play beyond the first set. 3-setters are usually too much. Prajnesh and Mukund won the first set of their matches against the two best players of the last 2 weeks, but couldn't sustain it either.

[jayakris]

Among the politicans Bhupender Hooda from Haryana was passionate about tennis and once even played an exhibition set with Boris Becker. Not sure how much he contributed to administration though. Leander is a member of the TMC but again not sure whether he is very active.

But non-BJP politicians like Hooda (congress) and any from parties like TMC may not be able to do much right now for anything of national significance. Probably need a BJP politician, and I am unable to think of many. Maybe only Fadnavis.

[jayakris]

Sumit lost 64 36 46.

He is clearly our only competitive singles player currently, but even he has his limitations. Like all the other Indian players currently, he isn't really able to sustain his good level of play beyond the first set. 3-setters are usually too much.

Yeah, it was quite noticeable today. His serve and shots clearly lost velocity and he lost a little bit of the spring in his legs after the first game of the seconds set when he had a break point and couldn't force a break. The first set had many shots that Palan had no chance to touch. Hardly much of that after the first set. Fitness is also not at the level it needs to be.

Did no Indian do any physical training in the off season? They are all running out of steam after one set.