ITF W40 Bhopal, Pune Jan 16-29, 2023

[sameerph]

2 W40 tournaments taking place in India in next 2 weeks in Bhopal and Pune. The entry list is extremely strong with some of the players returning from Australian open qualies also getting in there.

In first week Bhopal entry list, as of now Ankita and Karman are 9th and 10th in the entry list and will be just out of seedings. No other Indian player made the main draw directly. But, Sahaja and Rutuja are 1 and 2 out from main draw with 2 special exempt spots to clear. So, mostly those 2 will make the main draw directly. 4 wild cards should go to Indians and hopefully there will be at least 2-3 qualifiers making it around 10-11 Indians in main draw.

In second week in Pune, 1 top 100 player Tatjana Maria has entered. If she comes than it will push everyone down 1 spot.

[Dinesh]

This is off-topic but does anyone know what is going on with Pranjala who hasn’t played anywhere since last March?

[Dinesh]

Tatjana Maria playing at an Indian W40 event would be the biggest joke of her career, despite the fact that she seems to enjoy the Indian hospitality. Perhaps, she wants to stick around in Asia, since there is a WTA 250 event starting the week after this W40 one. In any case, I hope she has a repeat of her Wimby Cinderella run at the AO this year and avoids this tournament.

[sameerph]

In first week Bhopal entry list, as of now Ankita and Karman are 9th and 10th in the entry list and will be just out of seedings. No other Indian player made the main draw directly. But, Sahaja and Rutuja are 1 and 2 out from main draw with 2 special exempt spots to clear. So, mostly those 2 will make the main draw directly. 4 wild cards should go to Indians and hopefully there will be at least 2-3 qualifiers making it around 10-11 Indians in main draw.

Sahaja and Rutuja got into main draw making it 4 direct entrants to main draw. It seems Zeel and Vaidehi got 2 of the wild cards. Not clear who has got the other 2 wild cards, we will know tomorrow when main draw comes out.

In first round qualifying all these seeds went thru except our 4th seed Jenifer Luikham who got knocked out by a Dutch player. 1 all Indian match in final round of qualies between Shrivalli and Saumya Vig. There are 4 other Indians in final round of qualies but all are playing much higher ranked players. So, going by the current trend, will be surprised if any of them get an upset.

[sameerph]

As expected, only 1 Indian player qualified for the main draw ( Shrivalii). None of the other Indians could even take a set off their foreign opponents.

So, 9 Indians in main draw and these are first round match-ups.

[R1] (WC) Vaidehi Chaudhari (IND,522) vs. Ekaterina Reyngold (RUS,289)
[R1] Karman Kaur Thandi (IND,270) vs. Daria Kudashova (RUS,415)
[R1] (WC) Sharmada Balu (IND,917) v. (5) Anastasia Tikhonova (RUS,226)
[R1] (Q) Shrivalli Rashmikaa Bhamidipaty (IND,743) vs. (4) Irina Khromacheva (RUS,212)
[R1] Sahaja Yamalapalli (IND,458) vs. (Q) Eri Shimizu (JPN,660)
[R1] Rutuja Bhosale (IND,426) vs. (WC) Pehal Kharadkar (IND,NR)
[R1] (WC) Zeel Desai (IND,652) vs. (7) Valeria Savinykh (RUS,241)
[R1] Ankita Raina (IND,258) v. Ekaterina Maklakova (RUS,475)

As many as 6 match-ups against Russian players. Only 1 Indian guranteed to second round, hope we get at least 3 more wins against foreign players.

[prasen9]

Karman, Sahaja, Rutuja, and Ankita are the favorites going by rank.

[sameerph]

Yes, so anything less than 5 in second round will be underperformance.

[prasen9]

So these four and you are adding the residual probabilities of the others resulting in one upset ...? But, those probabilities are very low with each of our lower ranked players being lower by several hundreds (over at least 300). Maybe Vaidehi is the closest (-243).

[jayakris]

I think at least one indian will get upset, and maybe we will get one upset. So 4 in R2 would be good, in my opinion. Dont be surprised if only 3 make it to R2 though.

[prasen9]

Ankita and Karman got the highest ranked among the four who are favored. Maybe they will pull through. But, I agree with Jay. Most possibly we will have one of ours upset and upset one.

[sameerph]

So these four and you are adding the residual probabilities of the others resulting in one upset ...? But, those probabilities are very low with each of our lower ranked players being lower by several hundreds (over at least 300). Maybe Vaidehi is the closest (-243).

Actually, by mistake I added 1 from all Indian match-up of Rutuja. Did not realise that Rutuja was one of the four you mentioned.

So, anything less than 4 will be underperformance.

[Dinesh]

[R1] Sahaja Yamalapalli (IND,458) 3-6 1-6 (Q) Eri Shimizu (JPN,660)

[R1] Rutuja Bhosale (IND,426) 6-1 6-0 (WC) Pehal Kharadkar (IND,NR)

Gone are the days Sahaja struggled hard to reach main draws and rack up ranking points. Can’t even take advantage of easier R1 matchups whilst gaining direct entries to tournaments

Rutuja one win away from entering top-400.

[jayakris]

What happened to Sahaja? She is in a real slump for months now. With the tools she has, she needs to start winning again, but it is taking too long.

[sameerph]

So, we are already down 1 from our expectation of 4 in last 16. Bad loss for Sahaja. Upto Karman and Ankita tomorrow to live up to their rankings.

[Dinesh]

Shrivalli withdrew after qualifying into the main draw (injury?) and has been replaced by LL Sravya Shivani. Expecting wins from Ankita, KKT, Vaidehi today.