Karman Kaur Thandi

[prashanthm]

Wow! That was a close match.... Watched most of it except for the humdinger of a tie-break. I am glad she came through in the end, after being down a break in the first set and saving set-points in the second.... Hopefully the knee is alright...

[jayakris]

A bit off color today so far and down a break after her second service game 1-2... broken again, and down 1-4... She is not moving well at all today. Has some tape on that left knee. Mostly just going through the motions. No grunting on her serves and shots, nothing. I think she is planting her left foot gingerly after serving. Maybe trying not to re-injure anything... And she retired at 1-5, 30-15... That is it.

At the W60 in Toronto, Canada (indoor hard)

[R2] Karman Kaur Thandi (IND,217) l. (6) Jamie Loeb (USA,245), 1-5 Ret.

[prashanthm]

And she has retired. I was wondering when she was going to throw in the towel. I feel it is better to retire and nurture that knee to being healthy than risk it all....

[jayakris]

Yeah, it looked best not to make anything worse. Unfortunate. A really nice streak of 6 matches when she played topnotch tennis, ends.

[Dinesh]

Kinda unfortunate but seems like she needed this well deserved break this week. Can we be hopeful that she will be back next week at the Midland WTA125 event (where she’s currently 2 spots out of the QD) or continue to stay in Canada and play the Calgary W60 a week later?

[gbelday]

A bit off color today so far and down a break after her second service game 1-2... broken again, and down 1-4... She is not moving well at all today. Has some tape on that left knee. Mostly just going through the motions. No grunting on her serves and shots, nothing. I think she is planting her left foot gingerly after serving. Maybe trying not to re-injure anything... And she retired at 1-5, 30-15... That is it.

At the W60 in Toronto, Canada (indoor hard)

[R2] Karman Kaur Thandi (IND,217) l. (6) Jamie Loeb (USA,245), 1-5 Ret.

Damn! Although this was a tough one for me to follow. Rohan has been practicing with Jamie all week

[arjun2761]

Hope KKT recovers quickly. It seems whenever our players go on a good run, they get injured soon after. Yuki, Sumit, and Karman are the most recent examples.

The exception among Indians is Ramk but then he takes care to have large gaps between his good runs.

[sameerph]

Kinda unfortunate but seems like she needed this well deserved break this week. Can we be hopeful that she will be back next week at the Midland WTA125 event (where she’s currently 2 spots out of the QD) or continue to stay in Canada and play the Calgary W60 a week later?

She pulled out of that Midland WTA 125 qualies. Hope she gets fit to play Calgary W60 a week later.

This is a nice article on Karman by Kamesh in Sportstar-

Rise in ranking will help Karman enter bigger events, face better challenges, says coach Aditya Sachdeva

Looks like after her foreign coaching stint and all she is now working with Aditya Sachdeva and his team. Aditya is someone among Indian coaches with good credentials after he coached Yuki, but will have to see if he is the right coach to try to take her to top 100.

[SaniaFan]

Any news on her injury?

[Dinesh]

^^^ She’s slated to play at the W60 Calgary ITF next week, where she will be one of the top-4 seeds. And, based on her social updates, she is still in Canada, so no major injury concerns?!

[jayakris]

She has not withdrawn yet from the Calgary W60, so she must be okay. It didn't look like a horrible injury. More like a lingering thing that could come up if the leg gets stressed at some rare angle or something like that. Maybe some ligament/cartilage issue? I saw the knee (or calf or whatever) bothering her earlier during the title run too. Looked bad at first there too (down in the ground and in some pain) but she flexed it and came back to play very well and didn't call the official physio. Anyway, let us pray for it to go away, if it is the same issue that happened both weeks.

[jayakris]

At the W60 in Calgary, Canada (Indoor Hard):

[R1] (3) Karman Kaur Thandi (IND,220) vs Michaela Bayerlova (CZE,352)

I don't know much of anything about Bayerlova, but she seems to be a clay tour player and doesn't seem to have any good wins on the hard surface for a while. Hope Karman is recovered from the knee or leg issue.

[jayakris]

Karman was up in a hurry to 4-0 with two breaks. Too much power in her shots today. Made some mistakes and hit a DF to get broken in the 5th game. 5-2 and facing serve. Not serving well today (not accurately)... 5-3 and serving for the set. Saves a 30-40 BP, and converts her second set point. 6-3 0-0.

Karman is making too many mistakes now. Just not in any flow. 2-3 on serve at 30-40 BP, she gets over-aggressive for no reason and hits one out. Focus Karman, focus! It is 2-4... But Bayerlova suddenly can't serve. Three doubles faults in a row, and she drops serve at 0-40... 3-4 on serve. Karman shows he is no slouch at losing focus once again. A double fault, a netted shot and a BH DTL winner from MB... KKT broken again. 3-5. MB serves it off at love. Karman just lost a set to somebody who had 5 DFs and probably only 5 winners in the set. 63 36

Karman served well to hold 1-0. I had to step out... Okay, she has broken ahead to 2-0. Can he stay focused, and make it hold up?... In a spot of bother at 15-30 after netting a backhand (he BH has been more iffy today than normal). Gets an ace on a no-call, thank you. Big FH and big service winner. Holds to 3-0... KKT playing nicely again, and not being over-anxious. MB double faults again at 30-40 for a second break. 4-0... Deuce on a Karman DF, but she served and stroked will to hold without further trouble. 5-0... Karman wasted 2 match points at 40-0 at 5-1 but then hit a serve that Baerlova could only reach and touch somehow... 63 36 61

At the W60 in Calgary, Canada (Indoor Hard):

[R1] (3) Karman Kaur Thandi (IND,220) l. Michaela Bayerlova (CZE,352), 63 36 61

Karman played well. Maybe a bit rusty after several days of a break, but no sign of injury issues. She will need to be more focused in the upcoming matches. Up next,

[R2] (3) Karman Kaur Thandi (IND,220) vs Ana Sofia Sanchez (MEX,347)

[Dinesh]

Yeah, she is losing 59 points in the next 5 weeks. Ana Sofia is a tricky customer, having played in a lot of N American ITFs. Keep it up, KKT!!

[jayakris]

Karman gets the day off. Plays her R2 only on Thursday.