Ramkumar Ramanathan thread

[meyyis]

This week, Ram is in the Qualifiers of the ATP 500 in Acapulco, Mexico

[QR1] (6) Ramkumar Ramanathan (IND, 140) vs Kevin King (USA, 179)

[sameerph]

The last time these 2 played against each other, King thrashed RamK 62 62 in a US futures. But, that was in August 2015. RamK has made quite a bit of progress in his game since and hope it enough to overcome King.

[Varma]

Pretty tame loss for RamK as Kevin King thrashed him 3 and 0.

[QR1] (6) Ramkumar Ramanathan (IND, 140) l. Kevin King (USA, 179) 3-6, 0-6

- Varma

[arjun2761]

[QR1] (6) Ramkumar Ramanathan (IND, 140) vs Kevin King (USA, 179) 3-6, 0-6

From the point tracker, he seemed to put up a fight but lost almost all the longer games either on his serve or when returning.

[sameerph]

Also from the match stats appears to be a bad serving day for RamK. No aces and 7 double faults. It is difficult for him to succeed when his serve is not working well as it is one of his strengths.

He also seems to have a problem dealing with left handed players like King ( or Donald Young last week). I guess they find it easier to keep playing to his weaker backhand.

A lot to work on for RamK and his team.

[arjun2761]

He also seems to have a problem dealing with left handed players like King ( or Donald Young last week). I guess they find it easier to keep playing to his weaker backhand.

A lot to work on for RamK and his team.

Yes, that makes sense. The easiest shot for a player to hit is normally his forehand CC shot and for lefties that would target the backhand of Ramk...

[Saniapower]

Ramkumar needs to bring in a lot of changes in his game or he will become the next Somdev. The current system is not working in his favor.

[jayakris]

Ramkumar needs to bring in a lot of changes in his game or he will become the next Somdev. The current system is not working in his favor.

Becoming a next Somdev is itself some achievement, and he has some work to do to get there. Let us hope he can do that, first.

[sameerph]

Yes, Somdev has the third highest ATP singles ranking achieved by an individual male (62) after Vijay and Ramesh. Also had an Asiad and Commonwealth games individual golds. He did not stay in top 100 as long we would have liked but I would take it if RamK achieves at least as much Somdev did.

[VReddy]

Yes, Somdev has the third highest ATP singles ranking achieved by an individual male (62) after Vijay and Ramesh. Also had an Asiad and Commonwealth games individual golds. He did not stay in top 100 as long we would have liked but I would take it if RamK achieves at least as much Somdev did.

Our bar in the forum for RamK is really high. Leave aside Ram, Yuki or any other - I would be thrilled if any of our players get anywhere close to Somdev's 2009 to 2014 level exploits. And I mean in the next 10 years! Here I am thinking all along that we are having the best phase for sometime in Mens tennis but even I didn't set such lofty (its all relative I know) goals!

[Saniapower]

Somdev was our highest ranked singles player after VA & RK and he also achieved a fair amount of success in his short career. But he was really struggling at the later stage of his career mainly because he didn't have that firepower and he was forced to quit rather early. Ramk needs to change his style of play so that he can continue for a longer period.

[arjun2761]

Somdev's career was shortened largely because of significant injuries, otherwise he would have had 4-5 years in the top 100 or close to that level. He also got a late pro start because of playing 4 years of college tennis. He compensated for the lack of firepower with his legs and mental toughness. He did comeback after his first injury to back in the top 100 but seemingly couldn't do it again.

Likewise, Yuki would have been in the top 100 for a couple of years but injuries have gotten in the way even though he has more firepower (in terms of his ground game) than Somdev although he does not quite have Somdev's legs or mental toughness in fighting through long rallies.

Ramk seems to be somewhere inbetween these two. He has more firepower than Somdev and more physical fight than Yuki. Thus far, he has also been injury free. I would take 3-4 years at the top 100 level to be a good achievement for his talent.

[PKBasu]

Yesterday was truly a horrible day for our top-2.
RamK has strengths and weaknesses that are well-known, but has made very significant progress in the past year. Given the good support network he has, I think his chances of breaking through to the top-100 this year are reasonably good. Of course, it will happen mainly because of a few spectacular weeks of play and sensational upsets, interspersed with this type of bad loss.

[sameerph]

Likewise, Yuki would have been in the top 100 for a couple of years but injuries have gotten in the way even though he has more firepower (in terms of his ground game) than Somdev although he does not quite have Somdev's legs or mental toughness in fighting through long rallies.

Ramk seems to be somewhere inbetween these two. He has more firepower than Somdev and more physical fight than Yuki. Thus far, he has also been injury free. I would take 3-4 years at the top 100 level to be a good achievement for his talent.

True, that would be really great if he is able to achieve that. I did not have those sort of expectations from RamK when he was starting out. On the other hand, I had much higher expectations from Yuki but from now I would take 3-4 years at top 100 level from Yuki too.

As of today, RamK has moved up to his career high ranking of #133. No points to defend till end April. So, good performances at IW/Miami qualies and perhaps Irving challenger in between can take him further up the rankings.

[jayakris]

Ramk seems to be somewhere inbetween these two. He has more firepower than Somdev and more physical fight than Yuki. Thus far, he has also been injury free. I would take 3-4 years at the top 100 level to be a good achievement for his talent.

True, that would be really great if he is able to achieve that. I did not have those sort of expectations from RamK when he was starting out. On

Same here. I had hoped to see Yuki somewhere in the top 75 for a couple of years and perhaps even sneaking into top-50 at some point. I never expected any more than top-200 or top-150 for RamK, and I am already quite happy that he is getting close to top-100.