Prajnesh Gunneswaran thread

[sameerph]

Prajnesh lost the first set 4-6 but has just won the second set 7-5 in his Q3 match.

[sameerph]

In the third set, Prajnesh saved 11 out of 11 breakpoints which he faced and converted the only breakpoint he got to take the set and the match to qualify for the main draw.

At $50K+H Bastad Challenger, Sweden

[Q3] (4) Prajnesh Gunneswaran (IND,406) d. (6) Fred Simonsson (SWE,678) 46 75 63

Wish Sumit too would have played in this challenger instead.

Next,

[R1] (Q) Prajnesh Gunneswaran (IND,406) vs. Andrey Rublev (RUS,203)

So, he is playing a player whose rank is exactly half of his rank which indicated that it is a tough match.

[S_K_S]

Congrats on qualifying. Fond memories of Bastad from the Davis Cup match a long time ago. The place not the tie, I should add. Hopefully Prajnesh is enjoying the place too.

[Tolamu]

Prajnesh saves 2 bps in the 11th game to hold 6-5.
Rublev holds at love 6-6. TB time.
WOW! Won the TB.
Lost 2nd set and 1 break down in decider.

At $50K+H Bastad Challenger, Sweden

[R1] (Q) Prajnesh Gunneswaran (IND,406) vs. Andrey Rublev (RUS,203) 7-6(3) 5-7 0-1

[Tolamu]

[R1] (Q) Prajnesh Gunneswaran (IND,406) l. Andrey Rublev (RUS,203) 7-6(3) 5-7 7-6(3)

[sameerph]

Very close loss for Prajnesh. I like the way he fought back from a break down in couple of sets. I could watch only a couple of games where Prajnesh looked very good in his ground strokes and serve. I then watched the final set tie breaker which Prajnesh played poorly making a few unforced errors and Rublev played at his best getting all the first serves in.

Anyway, he showed that he belonged to this level and this will give him a lot of confidence and hopefully he will soon raise his ranking enough to directly get into challenger main draws.

[arjun2761]

That's a strong performance by Prajnesh!! Hopefully, this will give him the confidence to continue to do well at the challenger level...

[Rahb]

Prajnesh is in the main draw of the big Chengdu, China Challenger and he has drawn a qualifier. The cut off for main draw is 471. Vishnu should have been playing here

KU btw is also playing here using his protected rankings and has drawn a local wildcard in the first round

[sameerph]

Since 2 Indians are playing here, I am starting a thread.

[sameerph]

Congratulations to Prajnesh for winning his fourth futures title when he won $10K Chennai futures this week. He had 16 points falling of this week from last year's Indian futures. But, has now gained 7 from last week's Thailand challenger ( still to be updated due to US open lag) and 18 from this week. So, he will go down in the rankings as on 12th September but will move up to a new career high of around 360 in the rankings as on 19th September.

He has a lot of points (62) to defend for rest of the year. So, needs some good runs at futures/ challenger level just to maintain this ranking.

Next week he will be off to davis cup for the first time albeit only as a reserve. He will be back in the week after that for Coimbatore futures.

[sameerph]

Prajnesh has moved inside top 350 for the first time being ranked at a career high singles ranking of 344 this week. He has 60 points to defend for rest of the year though. So, he will need some strong performances just to maintain this ranking at the end of the year.

[sameerph]

Pranjnesh made his first challenger final last week in Pune. With that he moves inside top 300 for the first time and is now ranked at a career high of 287 and India # 3 behind Saketh and RamK. He has 40 points falling of for rest of the year. So, he will need to pick up 60 to 70 points for rest of the year to make AO qualies cut.

7 more weeks left to do that and will need a big run in challengers somewhere in next 4 weeks to do that.

[sameerph]

This is from Sinhombre in Australian tournaments thread -

Prajnesh is 3 out from the main draw for next week in Japan so his schedule for the next 3 weeks looks like 2 challengers in Japan followed by Astana.

Hopefully he can go deep in at least one tournament to sustain his AO qualifying hopes.

Surprisingly, he has kept his name in the entry list of second week of Australia futures with withdrawal deadline gone. He perhaps did not expect to make the main draw of second week of Japan challenger where he is 8 out. So, as of now his schedule for next 3 weeks looks like Japan challenger, Australia futures, Kazakhstan challenger. That is a lot of criss-cross travel. I guess if he goes deep at Japan challenger he with withdraw from Australia futures.

[Sin Hombre]

Prajnesh has pulled out of second week of Japan CH. And from week 2 of Australian futures as well.

So it appears his schedule might be Kobe CH -> week break --> Astana CH

[sameerph]

Yes, I was surprised that he had still kept his name in the second week of Australian futures. Did he miss in pulling out from there ? it was a bad miss in that case as it will now force him to miss an important week when he is looking to get into AO qualifying.