Ramkumar Ramanathan thread

[Rajiv]

Meanwhile Ram attempts his first foray into South America , as he has entered the Ecuadorian challenger on Hard courts. It’s a good choice to help him get back on track and will be amongst top 2 or 3 seeds and have a sneaking feeling a Bahrain may happen or at least will have a good run, Actually there is nothing wrong with his game , just the mental demons aided by some erratic tournament scheduling.
Throughout his career has a set pattern , he gets into a slump but once he gets into a rhythm he is on song and that what he badly needs.. just a spark, and hope Salinas Ecuador is the answer.

[Rajiv]

Ram follows the same route as last week in playing the qualies as the MD entry was not given in time.
This time it is a better preferred surface IH at Beil and takes on Finnish player Otto Virtanen and Ram won their only meeting last year.

[sameerph]

But his woes continue as he lost the first round qualies match 46 26. 8th consecutive first round loss on pro tour this year. When will his misery end ?

He is playing doubles along side Purav this week. We can discuss that in Europen challenger thread.

[suresh]

Someone posted on twitter that he has a leg injury and hence the loss. Rajiv might be able to confirm as he is in touch with RamK.

[sameerph]

Meanwhile Ram attempts his first foray into South America , as he has entered the Ecuadorian challenger on Hard courts. It’s a good choice to help him get back on track and will be amongst top 2 or 3 seeds and have a sneaking feeling a Bahrain may happen or at least will have a good run, Actually there is nothing wrong with his game , just the mental demons aided by some erratic tournament scheduling.
Throughout his career has a set pattern , he gets into a slump but once he gets into a rhythm he is on song and that what he badly needs.. just a spark, and hope Salinas Ecuador is the answer.

And after that week he has entered San Luis Potosi Challenger in Mexico on clay courts. All the challengers in that week are on clay but this one has the weakest entry list and RamK will likely to be seeded. He can then continue in Mexico for next 2 weeks after that- another one on clay and then last week on hard courts. Hopefully, these 3-4 weeks will bring some wins back for RamK.

[sameerph]

RamK and Purav thru to the SF this week.

At Biel Challenger 80, Switzerland

[R1] Ramkumar Ramanathan (IND) / Pura Raja (IND) d. Zhe Li (CHN) / Go Soeda (JPN) 64 64

[QF] Ramkumar Ramanathan (IND) / Pura Raja (IND) d. (4) Hunter Resse (USA) / Sam Verbeek (NED) 63 64

Next,

[SF] Ramkumar Ramanathan (IND) / Pura Raja (IND) vs. Dan Added (FRA) / Michail Pervolarakis (GRE)

[prasen9]

He's made $30k in singles and $26k in doubles this year. Not bad. Interesting that his doubles income is almost the same. Compared to Prajnesh who has made $41k in singles and almost nothing in doubles. Of course, they have big expenses with all the travel, etc.

[sameerph]

RamK and Purav thru to the finals.

At Biel Challenger 80, Switzerland


[SF] Ramkumar Ramanathan (IND) / Pura Raja (IND) d. Dan Added (FRA) / Michail Pervolarakis (GRE) 61 64

They will ve up against top seeds in final.

[F] Ramkumar Ramanathan (IND) / Purav Raja (IND) vs. (1) Pierre-Hughes Herbert (FRA) / Albano Oliverti ( FRA)

[arjun2761]

Herbert is a top 10 doubles player, so good measuring stick for Ramk in doubles...

[sameerph]

They lost in the final.

At Biel Challenger 80, Switzerland

[F] Ramkumar Ramanathan (IND) / Purav Raja (IND) l. (1) Pierre-Hughes Herbert (FRA) / Albano Oliverti ( FRA) 36 46

Anyway, RamK will be upto a new career high of #86 in doubles. He is very close to getting to grand slam main draws with similar ranked player. He can certainly get in with Rohan if they decide to play together at slams.

[suresh]

Q) Ramkumar Ramanathan won his first Grand Slam match yesterday. Your thoughts?

Oh yeah, he was pumped! He was really happy. He’s a really nice guy, but he’s still a kid in front of me (laughs). He also gets along really well with my son, which does not happen often actually that a male person gets along well with my son. Even during my match yesterday, Izhaan (Sania’s son) says “Ram uncle” and he goes and sits on his lap, so he was very fond of him.

He’s our future, he’s our number one tennis player. But he is our future and he definitely has the game right now to be top 15 doubles straight away. There’s no doubt about that but I think that he has a shot at being top 100 in the world at singles. I truly believe that, and with the kind of weapons he has, with a little bit better guidance I guess, I think that he can make it.

Source: Vishnu's interview of Sania for the Indian Tennis Daily

[Rajiv]

Good to read all this positive stuff about him, when for years he was the most lampooned and criticised player, and in comparison to weaknesses of our other players long Katha's were written for his backhand ,was evem mocked with Muslim names and all his achievements were simply grudgingly accepted, and then without knowing his side of story guys jumped with long pages and posts complete with videos about his brushes with players or umpires without knowing what was trigger for those happenings, and even his Challenger title didn't recieve the coverage compared to those writings and videos, or take just few days ago a win in GS round and just couple of guys observed it.
Anyway all this positive words comming now, better late than never.

[suresh]

(via Indian Tennis Daily)

RAMKUMAR RAMANATHAN STARTS GRASS SEASON WITH DOMINATING WIN

Ramanathan beat British wildcard Joshua Paris 6-3 6-2 at the ATP Surbiton Challenger Qualifying Round 1

[Rajiv]

Ram's last remaining of 2019 (19 points of New port ) have been taken off , but apparently in the process even the other players too have their lost their points , so instead of dropping , Ram has a fortuitous jump to 163 in the live rankings , which if translated points to some stunning results on the singles circuit inspite his poor singles form. ,and hope he can make the most of this windfall and maintain that ranking level in the remaining 3-4 grass courts tournaments , so that he can be well cushioned after the July where he needs to protect another big wave of points.

[sameerph]

RamK is the only Indian playing in Newport this week. So, we can discuss this in his thread.

Plays singles qualifying today.

At Hall of Fame Open, Newport, USA (Grass)

[Q1] (5) Ramkumar Ramanathan (IND,169) vs. (WC) William Blumberg (USA,785)

[R1] Ramkumar Ramanathan (IND) / John=Patrick Smith (AUS) vs. (2) Hans Hach Verdugo (MEX) / Hunter Reese (USA)