ITF M25/M15 India- March/April 2023

[PKBasu]

[R1] WC-Rohan Mehra (IND, 1857) d. WC-Sarthak Suden (IND, UNR) 63 75
[R1] Niki Kalyandi Poonacha (IND, 711) d. Digvijay Pratap Singh (IND, 570) 62 46 76(2)

Unfortunate that Digvijay (one of our most-improved players in the past year) ran into an in-form Niki in R1.
20 year old Rohan Mehra is the nephew of Dushyant (a fellow member of this forum, who has had some role in his tennis development). Good to see him make R2 here.

[jayakris]

Oh, I didn't know that Rohan was Dushyant's nephew. I was about to post that I was happy with Rohan Mehra doing well and justifying his wildcard.

Rohan Mehra was actually looking quite good earlier on in 2018 and 2019, and actually had three grade-5 titles in a row abroad at one time too - two in Bishkek (KYR) and one in Lida (RUS). But Covid ended his junior career prematurely. He had done well qualifying into two M15s in Israel and then one in Delhi late last year too. So I would not question at least the WC to Rohan Mehra from AITA. I will keep an eye on Rohan from now on. To be frank, I had forgotten about him .... Okay, some of the guys that got affected by Covid are slowly reappearing, and that is good news.

[sameerph]

Overall 15 Indians are the main draw of 32. There are 4 all Indian match-ups of which 2 got done today. Others 2 - Sid Rawat-WC Bhatnagar and Manish-Karan Singh will be tomorrow. Mostly Sid and Manish will come thru that.

That will make it 4 Indians in last 16. Then, there are 7 other matches involving Indians against foreigners - Of these only 1 match (Mukund) where Indian player is ranked higher. But, there are 3 others matches where an Indian player is only slightly lower ranked- Nitin Kumar Sinha , Siddharth Vishwakarma and Rishab Agarwal matches. 3 matches- Rushil, Vishnu and Faisal Qamar are playing seeds.

So, out of 3 close match, hope we win 2 and then provided Mukund wins, we get 7 Indians in last 16 which will be good. If anyone can upset a seed it will be great.

[jayakris]

Okay, we got one minor upset, as wildcard Siddharth Vishwakarma (IND,1005) beat Grigoriy Lomakin (KAZ,983) 63 36 76(3). This was some beautiful Houdini act by the southpaw Sid V, as he saved three match points at 4-5 in the third set before sending it to a tiebreaker and bulldozing his way with his strong forehand punchers to the left corner which Lomakin could not handle all that well.

8th seed Sid Rawat also won without any problems, but I don't know what happened in the Mukund match. I saw that Mukund had broken back to even things in the 9th game, but got broken again to lose the second set... But after 63 46 00, the scoreboard got stuck and the match has gone off the live stream too with the score stuck at 63 46... What is going on?... Update: Mukund retired at 0-4 in the third set. Shoot!

[sameerph]

Sad that Mukund had to retire in his match. He was one guy who was capable of winning a title and gathering maximum 25 points available.

Because, otherwise we got 2 mini upsets- Siddharth Vishwakarma as Jay mentioned above and Nitin Kumar Sinha (IND,916) easily beat Boris Butulija (SRB,780) 63 62. 3 Indians facing the seeds lost in straight sets.

Karan Singh (IND,909) had a nice upset over higher ranked Manish Sureshkumar (IND,673) 75 64

So, overall we get 6 Indians in last 16 which is 1 less than what I expected.

All of them are playing foreign players in second round and the only one playing a lower ranked player in Sid Rawat.

So, anything more than 2 Indians in last 8 will be a surprise as such.

[PKBasu]

Terrible day for us in New Delhi. All 5 Indians who have played today have lost, including Siddharth Rawat losing to a lower ranked Takahashi Yusuke 57 36 Niki Poonacha and Sid Vishwakarma yet to play their matches.

[jayakris]

But Niki and Sid V won, so we have two guys in the QF.

[sameerph]

Detailed results-

[R2] Nitin Kumar Sinha (IND,916) l. (1) Evgeny Donskoy (RUS,300) 36 46
[R2] (WC) Rohan Mehra (IND,1857) l. (6) Eric Vanshelboim (UKR,515) 26 04 retd.
[R2] (WC) Siddharth Vishwakarma (IND,1005) d. Blake Ellis (AUS,605) 63 36 63
[R2] (8) Siddharth Rawat (IND,557) l. Takahashi Yusuke (JPN,690) 57 36
[R2] Niki Kalyandi Poonacha (IND,711) d. (5) Arthur Weber (FRA,504) 36 63 75
[R2] Karan Singh (IND,909) l. Jacob Bradshaw (AUS,912) 76(10) 26 16

So, 2 Indians in QF is par for the course as 2 Indians were seeded. But, home conditions you would expect better results.

[QF] WC) Siddharth Vishwakarma (IND,1005) vs. (Q) Yunseok Jang (KOR,1006)

[QF] Niki Kalyandi Poonacha (IND,711) vs. Jacob Bradshaw (AUS,912)

[Atithee]

At least the QF matchups are about as good as our players could hope for in the field.

[PKBasu]

Great to see Sid Vishwakarma and Niki Poonacha salvaging the day for us with a couple of excellent upset wins. On paper, their QFs should be easier matches. So let's hope they can both make the singles SF.

[PKBasu]

In the doubles SF, Manish Sureshkumar and Parikshat Somani play Nitin Sinha and Arthur Weber (FRA). The other SF pits a Korean against an ASEAN pair.

[jayakris]

[QF] (WC) Siddharth Vishwakarma (IND,1005) l. (Q) Yunseok Jang (KOR,1006), 62 63
[QF] Niki Kalyandi Poonacha (IND,711) d. Jacob Bradshaw (AUS,912), 61 76(5)

[prasen9]

Niki won or lost? It shows green but shows "l". Can't find the results on the ITF website yet.

[sameerph]

Niki won or lost? It shows green but shows "l". Can't find the results on the ITF website yet.

Niki won. Jay just marked L by oversight.

Next,

[SF] Niki Kalyandi Poonacha (IND,711) vs. Yusuke Takahashi (JPN,690)

Takahashi is a former top 250 player. But that was way back in 2017.

[jayakris]

sorry... corrected the l to d.