Asian ATP Challengers (outside India) 2023

[Dinesh]

Vishnu Vardhan (#293) has entered the doubles event at the Nonthaburi ATP Challenger starting next week, with Indonesian Christopher Rungkat (#207).

There will be 2 consecutive challengers at the same location, which features more Indian players (Mukund and Praj).

Good luck to our players for the new season

[sameerph]

Mukund has entered M15 in Doha in the week of January 9 with a lot of other lower ranked Indians ( Sid Rawat, Niki Poonacha etc). There is M25 there the week after and another one in Kuwait the week after that. So, Mukund's name will be taken out from Thailand challengers. We are likely to have only Praj there for singles unless Sumit can get into qualies.

There are couple of Womens W40's too in Thailand in next 2 weeks. Ankita in main draw there with Rutuja, Riya and Zeel in qualies. For the second week, Karman also has entered. So, we have a separate thread for that or a common thread for Men and womens tounaments in Thailand in these 2-3 weeks.

[Dinesh]

Mukund is in the direct acceptance list for next week in Nonthaburi after a few withdrawals. Prajnesh is one out but Alejandro Tabilo who’s currently the top seed might be out since he’s supposed to play the Australian Open qualifying.

[Dinesh]

Nonthaburi Week 2:

Prajnesh makes the main draw direct entry, as expected (thanks to Alejandro Tabilo’s AO participation).

Yuki/Saki will be the top seeds in the doubles draw.

[jayakris]

Anirudh and VSP are also in the doubles list at Nonthaburi 2.

[sameerph]

Prajnesh and Mukund are in singles main draw and 5 Indian players are in doubles main draw at first challenger in Asia in Nothanburi, Thailand this week.

At Nothanburi Challenger 2, Thailand

[R1] Prajnesh Gunneswaran (IND,348) vs. (4) Zdenek Kolar (CZE,247)
[R1] Sasikumar Mukund (IND,340) vs. Mats Moraing (GER,302)

[R1] (1) Yuki Bhambri (IND) / Saketh Myneni (IND) vs. Zdenek Kolar (CZE) / Jason Taylor (AUS)
[R1] Anirudh Chandrashekhar (IND) / Vijay Sunder Prashanth (IND) vs. Evan King (USA) / Tennys Sandgren (USA)
[R1] Arjun Kadhe (IND) / Fernando Romboli (BRA) vs. Christopher Rungkat (INA) / Akira Santilan (AUS)

[Rajiv]

Prajnesh with an excellent win 3 & 3 over the 4th seed, played a flawless game and looks good to have deep run at this tourney , In R2 plays the winner of the match between the 2 qualifiers for a spot in the QF's.
# 334 in the live rankings now , and hopefully should be back to top 250 soon if this form continues and to see him in the next GS qualies , as today the AO qualies commenced and looking at the scores purely out of habit and feel so dejected not to see any of our guys , a first in the over 10 years or even more.

Mukund meanwhile continues with his erratic form and bowed out in straight set 4 & 4 , and doesn’t look like there will be a surge any time soon and the results will be more or less on similar lines which we have seen in the past 6 months.

[sameerph]

Just summarizing the results -

At Nothanburi Challenger 2, Thailand

[R1] Prajnesh Gunneswaran (IND,343) d. (4) Zdenek Kolar (CZE,237) 63 63

[R1] Sasikumar Mukund (IND,394) l. Mats Moraing (GER,291) 46 46

This week Prajnesh has taken back India #1 spot with Mukund's last year challenger runner up points falling off. An he is beginning to show improved form these days and hopefully will go deep in a couple of challengers to give imputes to his ranking.

[PKBasu]

Excellent win for Prajnesh yesterday, beating the 4th seed in straight sets. That opens up the draw for him a bit. Let's hope he can make it at least to the SF this week.

[PKBasu]

[R1] Anirudh Chandrashekhar (IND, 200) / Vijay Sunder Prashanth (IND, 243) d. Evan King (USA, 167) / Tennys Sandgren (USA, 310) 64 75

[sameerph]

Good win by Aniruddh/VSP against American pair. They will play third seeds next.

Prajnesh has tough match against 20 year old talented kid from France.

[R2] Prajnesh Gunneswaran (IND,343) vs. (Q) Arthur Cazaux (FRA,382)

Prajnesh lost in straight sets against Arthur in a similar challenger in Nothanburi in September, a challenger where Arthur went on to reach final and the week before Arthur won the title in Nothanburi challenger. So, no means easy match for Prajnesh.

[prashanthm]

What a bummer to lose such a close match that lasted close to 3 hours! Prajnesh had two match-points at the end of second set, but it was not to be in the end...

[R2] (ALT) Prajnesh Gunneswaran (IND,343) l. (Q) Arthur Cazaux (FRA,382) 76(5) 67(4) 36

[prashanthm]

Arjun also lost his R1 doubles match in straight sets...

[R1] Arjun Kadhe (IND) / Fernando Romboli (BRA) l. Christopher Rungkat (INA) / Akira Santilan (AUS) 46 26

Hopefully Yuki/Saki, the top-seeded pair will win later today...

[PKBasu]

What a bummer to lose such a close match that lasted close to 3 hours! Prajnesh had two match-points at the end of second set, but it was not to be in the end...

[R2] (ALT) Prajnesh Gunneswaran (IND,343) l. (Q) Arthur Cazaux (FRA,382) 76(5) 67(4) 36

Very disappointing loss against a qualifier, immediately after beating the 4th seed. Prajnesh really needs to be able to convert those chances (a couple of match-points in the second set).

[PKBasu]

The doubles top seeds are safely through to the QF:

[R1] 1-Yuki Bhambri (IND, 95) / Saketh Myneni (IND, 85) d. Zdenek Kolar (CZE, 133) / Jason Taylor (AUS, 230) 75 63