Ramkumar Ramanathan thread

[sameerph]

RamK missed another match point with Arnaboldi serving at 3-5 ad-out in third set. He holds. Now, RamK has a big task to serve it out.

[sameerph]

And he does it. Finally nails it to move to his first challenger final.

At $75K Tallahassee Challenger 2017, Florida, USA (green clay)

[SF] Ramkumar Ramanathan (IND,264) d. (Q) Andrea Arnaboldi (ITA,267) 62 57 64

Fantastic to see him put behind the disappointment of not able to put away 3 match points on his own serve in the second set and come back and finish the job in third set. It would have been hugely disappointing for him to lose from that position but glad that he came thru strong in the end.

[Rajiv]

Couldn’t watch the match as I was on the courts for my Sat game , but briefly during break when i saw Ram squandering 3 match points in the second set , it looked difficult but to his credit he hung in there to score a memorable victory for his first challenger final.
On Paper it looks an easy match playing an qualifier , but Blaz Rola is a live wire leftie who hurries around the court and hits with deep precision on both the flanks and mercilessness attacks the second serve , and definitely has seen better days being ranked in the 60’s couple of years ago until injuries took its toll , from which he now seems to be on recovery path ,so not a easy match by all means as up against a former top 100 player.

And in a first we have Indians competing in both singles and doubles finals of a challenger on American soil , the Singles Final between VIjay Amritraj and Zeeshan ali is the nearest which comes to matching this scenario.
In 1988 after leading India to the DC final the semi retired VIjay played a young aspiring 19 year old Zeeshan in a Challenger final which Vijay won in straight sets , Don't remember the exact tournament as writing from a blur fading memory , but if someone manages to dig it will be surely there, and in those days coverage of tournaments in the press was negligible leave aside a challenger results , and it took 2 months to find out about this Vijay- Zeeshan Final after it happened as that was time it took for Tennis Magazine to arrive by Sea Mail to India.

[Omkara]

15 August 1988
New Haven, Connecticut, USA Hard
$25,000

Vijay Amrtiraj d Zeeshan Ali 6–3, 6–1

report of Zeeshan vs Vijay

[Omkara]

Incidentally last of Vijay's Title ( as per wikipedia)

[jaydeep]

Good to see RamK didn't meltdown after messing up 3 match points on his own serve in the second set ... C'mon RamK.

At $75K Tallahassee Challenger 2017, Florida, USA (green clay)

[F] Ramkumar Ramanathan (IND,264) vs (Q) Blaz Rola (SLO,271)

[sameerph]

15 August 1988
New Haven, Connecticut, USA Hard
$25,000

Vijay Amrtiraj d Zeeshan Ali 6–3, 6–1

report of Zeeshan vs Vijay

Thanks for digging out that information, Sumanta. Sad that Zeeshan could not quite fulfil the potential as mentioned in that article and could never make it top 100. He was ranked 126 , 3 months short of his 19th birthday.

[Omkara]

Sometimes wonder what happened to him

[sameerph]

The last 2 weeks were very critical for him as he had 50 points to defend and was in danger of spiraling down in the 300 but in his true grit in the last two weeks he has almost achieved those 50 points and with Savanah,Karshi,Samarkand comming up for the next 3 weeks he is well set to get into 175 -185 range.

He is now 216 in the live rankings. A title will take him back inside top 200.

Now that he has ensured entry into French open qualies draw, he needs to take it a bit easy on that schedule which is mentioned above. He needs to take a week off somewhere. Above schedule would mean he will be going into FO qualies 6th straight week. With lot of travel in between, he will be dead tired playing that week than. I think same thing happened to him last year at FO qualies. He needs to go in relatively fresh there to have a chance of progressing. In all probability, he will play Savannah next week as he is already in US. The week after, he should take himself out from Karshi challenger which is on hard courts. Then, he can stay on clay and play in Samarkand where he had done well last year and he has so many points to defend. That is on clay and will be good preparation for FO qualies the week after.

He needs to still earn about 20-25 points till end May to ensure entry into Wimbledon qualies. A win in today's final will take care of that too,

[prasen9]

Hopefully, he can pull off a win here. Lots of points on offer for the champion.

[sameerph]

Close loss in the final.

At $75K Tallahassee Challenger 2017, Florida, USA (green clay)

[F] Ramkumar Ramanathan (IND,264) l. (Q) Blaz Rola (SLO,271) 26 76(6) 57

Good fight in the final after being outplayed in the first set. Overall, a great week for RamK.

[vatsal323]

Pathetic scheduling. He had to play just 12 hours after a grueling semi-final match. Horrible!

[Rajiv]

After a tiring but eventful Tallahasse Challenger it is off to Savanah where probably he would get a Tuesday or a Wednesday start and has drawn a 506 ranked WC Amercican Shan Ryan , and a probable 2nd encounter with 6th seed 147 ranked Stefan Koslov awaits.him.

[Tolamu]

His dbls match is today. He should have played only singles. Unnecessary torture to Indian fragile physic.

[suresh]

His dbls match is today. He should have played only singles. Unnecessary torture to Indian fragile physic.

One can think of it as a replacement for practise. Further, he could do with an improved volley. So as long as he is not carrying a niggle, he should be fine.