[Tennis] Misc. Results for Indians abroad...

[jayakris]

At the Monsatir M15 this week, 19 year old Karan Singh (IND,1103) had a good win in the R1 over Boris Butulija (SRB,849) 61 26 76(6) but Niki Poonacha lost 36 36 to the 3rd seed Tao Mu (CHN,642) who will play Karan next. This is the 4th Monastir M15 in a row where young Karan has moved to the second round with upsets. He had gone down to the same Butulija in three sets last week, so it is good to see him turn the tables this week. I am actually encouraged by Karan's results lately. He has come up from 1400s to 1100 with those hard earned single points for R1 wins. I think he will be in top-1000 in a couple of weeks as the highest ranked u20 player from India. Very nice!!

Karan has also had a 2 QFs and an SF in doubles in the last three M15s there (with three different partners) but is seeded third this week with maximum Jones of Thailand. I will keep an eye on Karan. He is one of the guys whose final 2 juniors years 2020 and 2021 got totally curtailed by Covid. In fact he got to play only 6 junior events (but was a finalist at the Guwahati J5 three years ago). Seeing his pro results, I think he *might* be a good one. Let us see! His AITA junior rankings were pretty good, iiirc.

EDIT: Actually Karan was our u18 national champion last year, which I forgot...

[sameerph]

Yes, Karan Singh is showing some promise although nothing spectacular yet.

Digivijay Pratap Singh has reached the SF in Spain M25.

At ITF M25, Madrid (Hard)

[R1] (8) Digvijay Pratap Singh (IND,710) d. (Q) Lautaro Pane (NR,ITF-492) 62 62

[R2] (8) Digvijay Pratap Singh (IND,710) d. (WC) Pablo Carretero (ESP,1900) 61 75

Next,

[QF] (8) Digvijay Pratap Singh (IND,710) vs. (3) Alberto Barroso Campos (ESP,403)

[jayakris]

At the Monastir M15, Karan Singh gave it a good ride, and almost pulled off yet another upset - against the third seed.

[R2] Karan Singh (IND,1103) l. (3) Tu Mao (CHN,643), 46 75 67(3)

It is pretty clear that the 19 year old first-year pro is playing at a top-750 level already. He does not lose easily to anybody, and that is a very good sign. Pretty clearly the most promising recent results among the younger crowd (19 to 22 age). I will look forward to how he does in the Indian M15/25 events. Meanwhile, wildcard Bharat Kumaran had made the second round with an injury retirement in the first match at Monastir, but he went down 26 36 to a German qualifier today.

At the Madrid M25,

[QF] (8) Digvijay Pratap Singh (IND,710) l. (3) Alberto Barroso Campos (ESP,403), 16 26

[Dinesh]

Aditya Vishal Balsekar is playing at the M15 Lubbock ITF in Texas and started with a straight set win against a slightly lower ranked German opponent (who’s a junior at the Drake Univ Men’s tennis roster).

M15 Lubbock, Texas

R1 Aditya Vishal Balsekar (1446) 7-5 6-3 Jeremy Schifris (GER, 1511)

Will probably play junior player, Axel Michelsen, who’s seeded sixth, in the second round. Aditya is also featured in the doubles draw (w/ Emmett Ward) facing the 2nd seeds in the opening round.

[sameerph]

Aditya Balasekar lost in second round against 6th seed Axel Michelsen 26 57.

In Mexico, Siddhant Banthia qualified for main draw but lost in first round of main draw against 8th seed. In Egypt, SD Prajawal Dev and Abhinav Sanjeev won a round but lost in the second round.

Among women in Tunisia, 7th seed Jenifer Luikham made it to the QF but lost to the third seed there.

[sameerph]

Not much success for our players in singles on ITF tour this week. In mens Vietnam M25, Digivijay Pratap Singh and Nitin Kumar Sinha made the second round but lost there.

Doubles titles for Siddhant Banthia in Mexico and Jeniffer Luikham in Tunisia.
5th doubles title for Siddhant and he has none in singles, not made it to any Semi finals or finals too I think. He can probably think of being a doubles specialist at an early age.

[jayakris]

At the W25 in Hua Hin (Thailand),

Humera Baharmus beat Sanjana Sirimalla, 62 62 in the Q2 to make the main draw, and join Sahaja and Siowjanya.

[R1] Sahaja Yamalapalli (IND,560) vs (WC) Salakthip Ounmuang (THA,NR/ITF-985)
[R1] Sowjanya Bavisetti (IND,506) vs (3) Ekaterina Reyngold (RUS,285)
[R1] (Q) Humera Baharmus (IND,872) vs Ekaterina Maklakova (RUS,447)

[jayakris]

At the Monastir M25 in Tunisia, Niki Kaliayanda Poonacha (IND,852) upset the 6th seed Xiaofei Wang (CHN,723) 57 64 62 in R1.

[sameerph]

In Thailand W25, Only Sahaja went thru to second round.

At W25 Hua Hin, Thailand

[R1] Sahaja Yamalapalli (IND,560) d. (WC) Salakthip Ounmuang (THA,NR/ITF-985) 63 61
[R1] Sowjanya Bavisetti (IND,506) l. (3) Ekaterina Reyngold (RUS,285) 16 61 67(0)
[R1] (Q) Humera Baharmus (IND,872) l. Ekaterina Maklakova (RUS,447) 26 36

Next,

[R2] Sahaja Yamalapalli (IND,560) vs. (7) Luksika Lumkhum (THA,354)
'

[sameerph]

Sahaja lost in straight sets against the Thai veteran.

At W25 Hua Hin, Thailand

[R2] Sahaja Yamalapalli (IND,560) l. (7) Luksika Lumkhum (THA,354) 16 36

[jayakris]

At the Challenger 80 in Tiburon, CA, USA (hard)

[R1] (WC) Siddhant Banthia (IND)/ Carl Emil Overbeck (USA) d. Denis Kudla (USA)/ Ben Shelton, 57 76(4) [11-9]
[R1] Anirudh Chandrasekhar (IND)/ N Vijay Sundar Prashanth (IND) d. (3) Malek Jaziri (TUN)/ Michail Pervolarakis (GRE), 76(5) 75
[QF] (WC) Siddhant Banthia (IND)/ Carl Emil Overbeck (USA) d. Anirudh Chandrasekhar (IND)/ N Vijay Sundar Prashanth (IND), 63 75
so
[SF] (WC) Siddhant Banthia (IND)/ Carl Emil Overbeck (USA) vs TBD

So another "forgotten man" emerges! Suddhant Banthia, now 22, was playing college tennis at Wake Forest Unibersity. He did not light the college singles world on fire, but was decent. He did reach the college doubles championships quarterfinal this year before he graduated. Looks like he has a future at least in doubles? Good to see the youngster out there and making use of the wildcard chance he got at Tiburon.

I only saw the ending 10 minutes of today's QF match, after Dinesh alerted us to look at the Tiburon doubles draw. In fact, Anirush and VSP were up 5-4 and serving to even up the sets when Sid and Carl broken them twice in a row to win the match. They jumped ahead in the final game on a superb backhand return winner from Sidhanth to the corner and made it count.

[jayakris]

At the M15 in Tay Ninh, VIE, Digvijay Pratap Singh (IND,679) beat (Q) Gunawan Trismuwantara (INA,1125), 62 62 and then Linh Giang Trinh(VIE,1486) 61 61 but now faces the top seed, Nam Hoang Ly (VIE,270) in the QF. The 8th seed Nitin Kumar Sinha got upset in the second round. Rishab Agarwal and Fardeen Quamar lost in the first round.

At the M15 in Monsatir, TUN, Niki K Poonacha (IND,852) upset the 6th seed Xiaofei Wang (CHN,723) 57 64 62 and then beat a lucky loser in the R2. He is up against the 2nd seed Tao Mu (CHN,624) in the QF.

At the W15 in Monator, TUN, 4th seed Jennifer Luikham (IND,686) beat Feriel Mahbouli (TUN,NR) 61 75 and Holly Hutchinson (GBR,1377) in a struggle, 67(5) 63 6. She runs into the 6th seed Marie Villet (FRA,888) in the QF.

[jayakris]

So another "forgotten man" emerges! Suddhant Banthia, now 22, was playing college tennis at Wake Forest Unibersity. He did not light the college singles world on fire, but was decent. He did reach the college doubles championships quarterfinal this year before he graduated. Looks like he has a future at least in doubles? Good to see the youngster out there and making use of the wildcard chance he got at Tiburon.

By the way, thanks to Dinesh's alert, I just noticed that I missed Siddhanth's return to pro events recently after the college stint. Remember that Siddhant was a top-50 junior player at the start of his final junior year in 2018 before he went to the US for college tennis. He was at the Cancun (Mexico) M15 two weeks ago (I guess this missed the attention of both Sameer's and mine!). He had gone to the Colombo M15s in July and lost in the first round itself to some lower level Indian players. Went to Cancun, qualified in and lost to a top-800 player. Then made the M15 there 2 weeks ago and won a round against a top-1000 player before losing 36 36 to Bernard Tomic(!) in the R2. Yes, the same Bernard Tomic who was junior #2 and then top-20 in the world 6 years ago, who had fallen on hard times all the way down to 850s in the rankings and decided to start a comeback from the lowest level M15s (Tomic won both the Cancun M15s he played without dropping a set and moved up near top-600 now!).

Anyway, Siddhant's success in Cancun was in doubles. He won the Cancun M15 doubles with Andres Andrade (ECU) and on the way had a 62 62 doubles win over Tomic in the R2 too there. That title two weeks ago pushed him up 251 spots to #591 in this week's ranking. Siddhant had also won an M15 doubles title in June in South Bend (IN,USA) with James Kent Trotter who plays under Japan flag (search me!) and had a doubles final also at the San Diego M15 with Yuta Kikuchi (JPN). After today's big win, he will move up further inside 550. He is clearly showing some very good doubles abilities.

At age 22 years and 1 month, Siddhant is the second highest ranked Indian doubles player under age 25, behind only Anirudh Chandrasekhar whom he beat today (Anurudh is more than 2 years older at 24).

[sameerph]

I did remark in this very thread when Siddhant won the doubles title this week-

Doubles titles for Siddhant Banthia in Mexico and Jeniffer Luikham in Tunisia.
5th doubles title for Siddhant and he has none in singles, not made it to any Semi finals or finals too I think. He can probably think of being a doubles specialist at an early age.

And this week Siddhant is proving in even better way that he is a much better doubles player than singles. Challenger SF is really good .

And looks like in Siddhant and Anirudh we have next batch of doubles specialists coming up. Lets see if they have it in them to right up to at least top 100 in doubles. But starting early will help.

[jayakris]

I did remark in this very thread when Siddhant won the doubles title this week-

Ha, I totally missed it. Thanks.