Ramesh Krishnan thread

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Re: Ramesh Krishnan thread

Post by PKBasu »

The year Ramesh turned 18 (1979) and won the French Open and Wimbledon junior singles titles, he qualified into the main draw of the FO, Wimbledon and USO, winning a round each at the FO (defeating Peter Fleming) and US Open (beating Phil Dent in easy straight sets), after making the QF at the start of the year at Auckland (where he beat Onny Parun, the thorn in our side for so many Davis Cup matches); later in the year, Ramesh made the QF at the Cleveland ATP event. Those were the days, my friend!
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Re: Ramesh Krishnan thread

Post by punarayan »

PKBasu, You hit the nail on the head! Those were the days when an Indian had the potential of given a top -10 player a run for their money. Thanks for all things Ramesh!
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Re: Ramesh Krishnan thread

Post by rajitghosh »

There are 2 excellent tennis websites now

www.tennisarchives.com
www.thetennisbase.com

All should go through these sites and look at the exploits of Ramanathan Krishnan, Vijay Amritraj and Ramesh Krishnan. These sites have records of Indian players going back to the 1920's so apart from these 3 stalwarts, you have records of 20s players like the Fyzee brothers, Mohammed Sleem and Jagat Mohan Lal, 30s players like Ghaus Mohammed Khan, 40s and early 50s players like Sumant Misra, Dilip Bose, Narendra Nath, Subba Sawhney and Naresh Kumar, 60s players like Jaidip Mukerjea and Premjit Lall (stalwarts in their own right) as well as SP Misra, 70s players like Anand Amritraj, Sashi Menon, Jasjit Singh, Gaurav Misra and Chiradip Mukerjea. Suddenly from the 80s you find lesser number of top players. Possibly Leander is the only one. Somdev sparkled only for a brief while many of those mentioned above had pretty long careers.
Upto the 70s, you could even find the Indian 2nd string (though calling Jaidip or Premjit second string is unfair) beating top players quite often and progressing deep in high level tournaments.
Reading up on the Davis Cup records is especially interesting. India apart from the Challenge Round is 1966 reached the Inter-Zonal Finals (equivalent to semi finals today) in 1956, 1959, 1962, 1963, 1965 and 1968 apart from the Inter Zone Semis (equivalent to quarter finals) on a few other occasions.
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Re: Ramesh Krishnan thread

Post by Rajiv »

Got hold of another rare video of Ramesh’s matches and this one is against the great Bjorn Borg , To stretch or push Borg world no 1 , in a corner was great feat and headline news in those days and to be done by an Asian was unheard and considered earth shattering and Ramesh in 81 stretched Borg not once but twice to 3 sets , first here in Tokyo and than later in Stuttgart.
Ramesh is seen here in his usual self, taking the ball early , anticipating the returns and crisp backhands, geometric angular return and all with a wooden Dunlop Maxplay when almost the entire tour had changed to composite racquets. Seeing him play is like watching a classically trained musician, this is tennis being played in its purest form, rooted in tradition and after watching this hour long match felt like was at the Opera House watching two virtuoso's perform.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NE2j4rFgQE4
http://kharasach.com/watch/NE2j4rFgQE4
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Re: Ramesh Krishnan thread

Post by PKBasu »

Rajiv, thanks for that wonderful vignette of 20 year old Ramesh in action against the great Borg.
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Re: Ramesh Krishnan thread

Post by Rajiv »

Here are some couple of more videos of Ramesh Krishnan against the Japanese in the 1983 Davis Cup tie
Even though the Japanese weren't the power house as they are now it was always going to be tough with the home support the surface and the ever dangerous floater on the circuit Tatsui Fukui , this was a do or die match for Indian

The entire 70's were glory years led by Premjit Lall, Mukerjee's and the Amritaj's and for some reason in the late 70's Vijay didn't give much time to the DC Campaigns
Only when he (Vijay) was appointed the captain in 1981, the Davis Cup campaign took a filip and in 83 we made the WG , but drew the French in R1 and against the Yannick Noah French , Vijay felt sick and Ramesh was injured and onus fell on Sashi and Anand and predictably we lost to the French ,

And to remain in the WG we had to overcome the Japanese in the playoff and knowing our penchant for grass and faster surface they prepared the slowest of clay courts but we prevailed 3-2 , So important was this match that we after winning twe remained in the WG for 6 consecutive years until '88 and in between also reached the finals in ' 87
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CqcPl3QLLag
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yZg9LsSSZXc


1986 was the year when RK was in his prime where he reached his career high of 23 and in process won 2 ATP's in that year One of them was the Japan Open ,and in this video of 1986 Japan Opens Finals won by RK it is against the talented Jan Gunnarsun from the Swedish Stable ,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ixV_aGuxbj0
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Re: Ramesh Krishnan thread

Post by rajitghosh »

I have a basic question about rankings of Ramesh and Ramananthan Krishnan? The ATP site shows Ramanathan Krishnan's highest rank as No. 136 in 1978. But in 1978, Krishnan Sr. did not play any tour events. He certainly didn't play the Indian Open. Was Ramesh ranked 136 in 1978 and the ATP by mistake has attributed that ranking to his father? Ramesh had started playing on the circuit by then.
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Re: Ramesh Krishnan thread

Post by PKBasu »

Yes, well caught, and I think you are quite right about this (although it is also possible that Shankar Krishnan's points were being attributed to Ramanathan, who definitely didn't play even the Indian Open after 1975, when he was 38). Ramesh made the main draw of the Australian Open at the end of 1978, made the SF in Hong Kong, the QF in Manila (both ATP tour events) and the QF at the Indian Open. Although the ranking history doesn't show him ranked as high as 136 in 1978, his match results suggest he could well have been ranked around those levels.
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Re: Ramesh Krishnan thread

Post by rajitghosh »

In fact there may be another point about Ramanathan Krishnan where the ATP site may have gone wrong. The site list professional (open) titles won from 1968 onwards even though ATP itself started in 1973. In 68, Krishnan won the Canadian Open and Stuttgart (the same title Ramesh won in 81 or 82). Yet he is shown as having won 0 titles.
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Re: Ramesh Krishnan thread

Post by Saniapower »

rajitghosh wrote:In 68, Krishnan won the Canadian Open and Stuttgart (the same title Ramesh won in 81 or 82).
WOW! :notworthy:
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Re: Ramesh Krishnan thread

Post by prasen9 »

Wikipedia (although I don't know how reliable, but, seems correct) shows Ramanathan Krishnan winning the Canadian Open in 1968. And, the tennis archive lists him as winning the Stuttgart Open in 1968. I think the ATP has incomplete data. His 1968 record shows only the Grand Slams. They do not have the rest of the data. In the titles/finals tab, it shows "No data found for this player." So, basically, that's that.

Ramesh won Stuttgart Open in 1982. He won the Manila Open in 1981.
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Re: Ramesh Krishnan thread

Post by Rajiv »

Now this is Tennis being played in its purest form..

No huge serve , no huge top spin from base line, no big groundies or ball bashing.

Pure artistry at work, simply caressing the ball , taking it early with just pure placements.

Truly a touch artist and a percentage player.

Here is the video of Ramesh playing Stefan Edberg in R32 of 87 USO, which the Swede won after a titanic struggle 76 36 64 46 64.
Watch this you will never ever see this form of Tennis being ever played in your lifetime

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Re: Ramesh Krishnan thread

Post by suresh »

@rajiv The score of in the match that you shared is a straight sets win for Edberg over Ramesh.
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Re: Ramesh Krishnan thread

Post by rajitghosh »

Not R32. Ramesh made it to the QF in 87.
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Re: Ramesh Krishnan thread

Post by Rajiv »

Since this video is not of the complete match, I was writing from memory about the R32, 5 setter RK had with Swede @USO which was at the back of my mind, however this video is from the 87 QF which he lost in straight sets.
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