Ramkumar Ramanathan thread

[jayakris]

For the record, At Antalya 3 Challenger 50, Turkey (Clay)

[QF] (2) Ramkumar Ramanathan (IND,186) l. Eduard Esteve Lobato (ESP, 336), 26 06
[SF] (4) Vladyslav Orlov (UKR)/ Ramkumar Ramanathan (IND) l. Riccardo Bonadio (ITA)/ Giovanni Fonio (ITA), 67(4) 46

[vparam]

Made no sense that he also played doubles.

[vparam]

RamK withdraws from this week’s challenger in Antalya citing left knee injury. Good decision. Time to rest and recharge for the 2022 season.

[Rajiv]

No he is not yet done for this year as in few days an IPL like circus is taking place in Bombay, where he(Ram) is the most expensive player at Rs 4.5L being bought by Mumbai, and rightly didn't enter the dbls, so as not to leave his partner in lurch, so just needed to be fresh, rather than parachuting from Turkey as who's who of Indian tennis will be congerating for this circus.Plus this challenger offered near futures like points for the first 3/4 rounds.

[Rajiv]

Ram has given his entry for the 250's in Adelaide & Melbourne starting in first week of Jan where he is over dozen places out from the qualies list, hopefully should make the qualies draw when the list drops drastically when it nears to the starting date.
Yuki too figures in the list but as an ALT for main draw and has skipped the qualies.
Prajnesh meanwhile has skipped the schedules all together and doesn't intend to play any Challenger or 250 qualies before the AO qualifiers.

[prasen9]

No he is not yet done for this year as in few days an IPL like circus is taking place in Bombay, where he(Ram) is the most expensive player at Rs 4.5L being bought by Mumbai,

Around $6k for one week's work. Not GS money but not bad at their level.

[Rajiv]

Like this, there are many other options which players use to make additional money apart from tournament play.

[prasen9]

Might as well because ATP pays prize money that is hard to make ends meet with.

[sameerph]

RamK is having a great time in last couple of months. After ending last season with his first challenger singles title, he starts this year with his first ATP title in doubles along with Rohan Bopanna.

RamK is now ranked 111 in live ATP doubles rankings close to his career high. But, as Rajeev said he has big 275 points to defend in February.

Ideally his pairing with Rohan can do very well at ATP level. But, not sure how many opportunities they will get to play together. RamK is still quite focussed on singles and even otherwise with their current combined ranking they will find it difficult to get into ATP main draws.

They will probably pair up for Pune ATP either directly or thru a wild card. Then, RamK will mostly line up for back to back Bengaluru Challengers. In second week of Bengaluru challengers, there are 4 ATP tournaments including one at Doha. There could be an opportunity for RamK and Rohan to get in there. So, RamK will have to take a decision there where he will play. They can also play together for Dubai ATP the week after.

[PKBasu]

Actually, their combined rankings should enable RamBo to get into most ATP main draws, although of course it would be even better if RamK is able to raise his ranking to inside top-90 in doubles (on the evidence of this week, that shouldn't be too difficult). The bigger challenge may be that Bopanna has already committed to Shapovalov for the AO and perhaps most other big tournaments this year.

[sameerph]

Bops is playing next week at second Adelaide ATP and Australian Open with Roger-Vasselin.

Not sure if he is commited with him for longer term.

[prasen9]

Don't know if Doha or Dubai would consider a singles wildcard to RamK given his recent exploits and the large Indian viewership in the stands for these tournaments.

[sameerph]

Ramkumar along with Rohan Bopanna won his second ATP doubles title in 2 months as they won the Pune ATP title.

With that they will move up to top 100 ranking for the first time in his career in doubles. He has 125 points to defend next week though. He is playing Bangalore challenger next week and will need to win the title there to stay in top 100 next week.

[Rajiv]

After the spectacular success in dbls , thought Ram & Rohan would be playing more frequently and become a regular feature on the tour, but sadly it is not happening any time soon.
For Doha & Dubai maybe time was short and also the ranking factor , but was hopeful on IW , but even IW , Rohan has decided to pair up Shapo where Ram & Rohan could have easily made the MD with a combined ranking of 63 which is even higher than 116 of Rohan & Shapo.
Of course the DC captain will make them play the dbls Davis Cup, but for tournaments it seems Ram is at the mercy of Rohan who will decide when and where they will team up.

[Rajiv]

While this is all happening Ram in the meantime will try to get his singles form in order and will play the IW qualies if he manages to get in and than the 2nd week of IW will be at the Phoenix challenger.