Divij Sharan / Purav Raja (pair) thread ...

[arjun2761]

It a brutal loss for sure. Not sure that they are a brutal team in that they seem to be one of the better but typical challenger level doubles team. As far as I can see, neither of the two Aussies (with their respective partners) have beaten another doubles team with both opponents in the top 100 until this victory at least this year.

[Varma]

You are right, Arjun. I concur with you. In my defense though, I said, "brutal team as an R1 opponent in a Challenger" . I guess I have too much of a soft corner for these guys. I feel that they deserve to be regulars on the tour. Unlike Lee-Hesh (who, of course, are top notch), DiPu have realized quickly that they are each others' best bets and put their differences aside to team up again. They have been on the fringes for too long and I am as desperate as they are to see them eek out a living at ATP tournaments.

- Varma

[sameerph]

Congratulations to Divij and Purav for winning the big $125K+H Bordeaux Challenger last week. This is their 6th challenger title together. Apart from this of course they have won 2 ATP titles together.

Divij is now ranked 55 and Purav at 58, just a few spots below their career high rankings of 53 and 54 respectively.

Hope they have a good week this week at Lyon and then at French open next week. They have no points to defend for these weeks and a good run can get them inside top 50 before grass season where they have more points to defend.

[sameerph]

Divij and Purav are now ranked at a career high of 51 & 52 respectively. They have huge points to defend in next 4 weeks (including a title at Las Cabos). So, will need a big run somewhere now. They have Newport, Atlanta, Las Cabos ATP coming up in next 3 weeks.

[PKBasu]

They won Bogota. They split. They got back together. They won Las Cabos. They Split again. They _________________________

Maybe they are looking to make a pattern?

- Varma

Actually, it was worse the last time. They won the Bogota title in 2013, then made the round of 16 at the US Open in 2013, but broke up before defending their Bogota title in 2014. Just before they split up, they had won a round each at Houston and Oeiras on the ATP tour and won a couple of Challengers. But Purav went off with Demoliner, and Divij played with Lu at Wimbledon 2014.

This time, they lasted one full year together after their Los Cabos title, attempted to defend it (losing in the SF to Huey/Cabal), and only then split. Along the way, they made R3 (last 16) of the French Open, and R2 at Wimbledon for the first time. They have never won ATP titles with other partners, so the writing is on the wall: they need to get together again soon!!

[cricketics]

Purav/Divij in us open 2013? And they reached round of 16 in a slam? From my memory they never reached that far in a slam and Divij played with LU even at US Open 2013.

[sameerph]

True, Divij reached R16 at US open with Lu. In fact their results after their 2013 Bogota title where bad for almost a year before they took that decision to split.

This time the results were not that bad . So, the split at this stage looks a bit surprising.

[PKBasu]

Yes, Divij reached R3 (last 16) of the US Open in 2013 with Yen Hsun-Lu (perhaps because DiPu couldn't get into the draw together) then resumed playing with Purav immediately afterwards.

[sameerph]

Well, it looks the split was more tactical due to rankings and should not be a permanent one.

Leander Paes teams up with Purav Raja for Winston-Salem Open and US Open

With their combined rank of 137 (Sharan 68 and Raja 69) they anticipated that as a team they would not have entered the US Open, where the cut last year was around 130, and they decided to split.
Paes, ranked 59, has paired with Raja and Sharan with Germany's Andre Begemann, who is placed 66.
The deadline to send entry was August 18. However as it turned out, a lot of singles players chose not to play the doubles and the cut did not come out as strong as expected. Eventually the cut was 155.
Sharan explained that split was the only sensible option under prevailing circumstances.
"Yes, we could have entered together but we would have known only last minute. If we could not get in together, then we would have struggled to find partner at the last minute because everyone would have fixed the team. Or maybe only one of us would have found a partner, so we had to take a call early," Sharan said.

[bujilover]

Oh,That's a relief!

[PKBasu]

Good to know that the conspiracy theorist was wrong this time

This is actually similar to what they did at the US Open in 2013.

[PKBasu]

Reading the ToI report that Sameer has posted leaves one slightly bemused, however. Divij is partnering Begemann, with whom his combined ranking is 134 (only marginally better than the 137 that DiPu had). If fear of making the main draw was the main consideration, then Divij's choice of partner is very odd indeed.

Maybe, as Rajiv first pointed out, that "something is rotten in the state of Denmark" (to quote Shakespeare's line about corruption/intrigue in Hamlet).

[jayakris]

Maybe not, PKB. Once LP was found to be available, it made sense for one of them to get assured of making it in (almost surely) with LP. Then only one of them would needed to look for a partner and take a chance (rather than both of them being in danger of missing the cut). They might have had an idea that Begemann might be available, and so it made sense to try this. So, perhaps, just perhaps, the state of Denmark is still smelling like roses. I'm going to wear my rose-colored glasses anyway.

[sportsfan]

Begeman is not a smart choice for a partner.

[Omkara]

Let's give the pair the benefit of doubt. This things are not that straightforward. We have seen how people miss the mark by one rank. Remember all the tension before GS singles qualies??? So they did what they felt right.

It's still a possibility that the pair is splitting. Let's give it some time.