Australian Open 2025

[Rajiv]

Well said Sanjay....

Anyway the main point of my post was to higlight the number of Indian participants at a GS and was a continuation to the discusiion on number of Indians who will turn up in AO2025 and no way connected to quality of the field.

But these serial nitpickers will always look for any opportunity to nitpick.

[jayakris]

^^^ "Serial nitpickers"

[vparam]

Sumit claims the final direct entry spot into the Australian Open main draw!

[jayakris]

^^^ Oh, I wasn't checking. Didn't know he was that close to not making it into the first list. Nice!!!

[jayakris]

In the J1000 junior Australian Open entry list, we have Kriish Tyagi (IND,63) and Rethin Senthilkumar (IND,71) as the 26th and 30th direct entry. Hitesh Chauhan (IND,159) is 6th out from the qualifying list and should make it in.

On the girls' side, Krisha Mahendran (IND,130) is 21st out of the qualifying draw and Maaya Rajeshwaran (IND,163) and Rishitha Basireddy (IND,188) are 39th and 51st out. So, I don't expect them to make it in, except maybe Krisha with an outside chance.

As for Indian-origin foreigners, Maya Iyengar (USA,38) is in the girls main draw, and Ronit Karki (USA,133) is in the boys qualifying draw.

[sameerph]

This seems a very early entry list and withdrawal deadline is 1 month away ( 7th Jan), so we may see a lot of withdrawals and I think Krisha will make it to qualies too. Maybe Maaya too has an outside chance too but not sure if she will go there if getting is uncertain.

[jayakris]

Yes, it is the initial entry list that came out today. We should expect about 15-20 withdrawals. Usually, up to around #130-140 would make it, so Krisha does have a chance. Rather improbable for Maaya. I think she should just stay in India and play the J300 and J200s. Pick up a bunch of points and be ready for the remaining junior grand slams. She has been at the AO qualies once. She can skip it this time.

For that matter, Krisha also should play the Indian events and try to get up inside top-60 to play the remaining grand slams.

[sameerph]

Jeevan-VSP lost in the final of WC playoff against an unheralded Japanese pair 62 26 2-10. Just got blown away after that first set.

So, looks like they have missed the opportunity to go to AO.

So, only 4 Indian doubles players are likely to be there at AO ( 5 if Arjun gets fit by that time).

Arjun Kadhe has not recovered from his knee injury. So, he has not entered at AO.

4 Indians in the doubles main draw entry list with different partners- Rohan with Nicolas Barrientos ( 16th seeds as of now), Yuki with his regular partner Albano Olivetti, Balaji with Mexican Miguel Reyes-Varela whom he had played with at French open and reached PQF and Rithvik playing his first grand slam along with American Ryan Seggerman ( ranked 83).

Anirudh with Karol Drzewiecki are 4th in the alternate list and Jeevan-VSP are 5th in the alternates. Going by history, there is fair chance for them to make it to main draw in the end.

[jayakris]

In the J1000 junior Australian Open entry list, we have Kriish Tyagi (IND,63) and Rethin Senthilkumar (IND,71) as the 26th and 30th direct entry. Hitesh Chauhan (IND,159) is 6th out from the qualifying list and should make it in.

On the girls' side, Krisha Mahendran (IND,130) is 21st out of the qualifying draw and Maaya Rajeshwaran (IND,163) and Rishitha Basireddy (IND,188) are 39th and 51st out. So, I don't expect them to make it in, except maybe Krisha with an outside chance.

As for Indian-origin foreigners, Maya Iyengar (USA,38) is in the girls main draw, and Ronit Karki (USA,133) is in the boys qualifying draw.

The cut dropped by 7-8 spots each on the boy's and girl's draw. Hitesh has just made it into the qualifying list, so three Indian boys will be there, with Kriish and Rethin in the main draw. Krisha is still 13th out and Maaya 28th out. Krisha may make it in the end, but I don't think Maaya will.

Ronit Karki (USA) withdrew

[jayakris]

Krisha, now ranked #98 and the only Indian girl in the top-100 is now 4th out for qualifying. I think she will make it in, but #139 Maaya is 16th out and probably won't.

[sameerph]

^^^ Hitesh has withdrawn from the qualies list and so has Maaya. They are instead concentrating on 200 in Chandigarh next week and probably Kolkata the week after. I guess it is too much of travel and expense to go there only for qualies. Maaya would not have made it to qualies too anyway.

So, we have Kriish and Rethin in boys main draw and Krisha who is now in the qualifying entry list.

[jayakris]

I think it is better for Hitesh and Maaya to just play the Indian events and get their rankings up to play the FO, Wimb and USO juniors.

[Rajiv]

So it is Tomas Machac # 26 for Sumit in the R1 at the AO.
Very tough for Sumit to cross this hurdle as saw Machac in Shanghai few months ago where he took out Alcaraz in the qtrs and then lost a close SF to Sinnner.
Also Sumit will be at a big risk of falling out of the Top 100.

[prasen9]

It will be very hard for Sumit to beat someone in the top-30 period.

If we are looking for someone who beat some top-10 player or top-5 even in the last year and someone who made a semi in some tournament or things like that, we will actually perhaps find more than 26 people who did that. That is a weaker achievement, I think. I suppose beating top-2 or three - we may find fewer than 26 people.

Even weaker forms of achievement is "was top-30 two years ago" type of comparisons. We may find 50-60 people who did that and thus it is a lower achievement than top-60 - just making up some numbers here but the principle is what I want to highlight. The longeer the number of years the weaker the achievement is because more people fit in that category. And, the weaker the signal is to predict what will happen today or tomorrow.

Sumit will possibly fall out of the top-100 but that is okay. He will play the clay season and get back close to it if he is in form. If not, he does not deserve it anyway.

[Rajiv]

At the Australian Open , the Match between Rublev and Jao Fonseca is the one to watch , Came to my notice during his 2nd round against Coleman Wong and impressed by his power play and booming serves , which is not like that of the one dimensional Isner , but is based on methodical play, point constructions and with superb lighting fast court coverage.

Each of the qualies round he blanked his 3 opponents 6-0 in one of the sets and before that won the Canberra challenger where Sumit could not win a match and the Brazilian won that Challenger without dropping a single set. And before the Canberra Challenger he won the Next Gen ATP finals pocketing a whopping $526,000 as the first price.

And now is on a 12 matching unbeaten winning streak out of which the last 9 are without dropping a set, has been compared to Sinner and looking for his 13th win in a row when he takes on world # 9 Rublev.