Mukund Sasikumar thread

[jayakris]

He breaks Fanselow at 15-40 in the first game of the second set and holds. 76(6) 20. Has served 7 aces so far (no DFs). nice. Playing an intelligent game, generally. Had a couple more BPs in the 3rd game that went waste. Both guys having trouble on BPs. SM is 2 of 11 and SF is 1 of 7 so far... 76(6) 31... Now 4-2... 5-3. SF serving to stay alive. And Mukund breaks him at 15-40 with two tremendous down the line deep winners to the left side line, one on the backhand and one on the forehand. Game set match! ...

A really nice win there for our dude. 8 aces and no DFs helped. He did very well on returning the serve too, with about 3 return winners as well. Just a solid match all around for Mukund. Keep it up!

At the $54K+H Traralgon Challenger 2019, Australia (Hard)

[R2] (10) Sasikumar Mukund (IND,236) d. Sabastian Fanselow (GER,375), 76(6) 63
which brings up
[R3] (10) Sasikumar Mukund (IND,236) vs (8) Alejandro Tabilo (CHI,216)

[Rajiv]

Yes a nice win in straight sets for Mukund, hope he can string up few more victories to aim for a shot at AO qualies.

[Rajiv]

In the live rankings , Mukund is at a career high of 229.

Till the end of the year he needs to protect 67 points out of which 7 he has already saved, its going to be a tough grind for him to aim for the AO qualies slot , although not impossible.

[jayakris]

At the $54K+H Traralgon Challenger 2019, Australia (hard)

[R3] (10) Sasikumar Mukund (IND,236) l. (8) Alejandro Tabilo (CHI,216), 46 36

I only saw the final 5 games of the match, from 46 13 onwards till Mukund dropped serve a second time in the set in the 9th game. Mukund was serving aces by the bushel but showed extremely poor ground strokes all along. In fact, he lost 4 out of 5 points if it went to more than 4 shots. Almost unbelievable that he could play so poorly. Why are so many of our players so unsteady from week to week or match to match on the solidity of their ground strokes?? Tabilo was eminently beatable, but he was good enough to go for a decent shot every time Mukund dropped a ball short in the ground stroke exchanges. And it seemed like he would hit one pitiably short every third stroke. So, after serving 13 aces (no DFs) and getting 9 (NINE!) double faults from Tabilo, Mukund still managed to lose the match so listlessly. How does one lose a match after getting 22-2 on free points from serves alone? 66 points to him and 76 to Tabila. But take away the serve points and it was 44 points to 74 points when the ball was in play. That shows how poorly he hit the shots today. Quite different than two days ago against Fanselow.

But, with the kind of serving he is doing (22 straight aces without a double fault in two matches there!), he will go places. He just needs to get more solid on ground strokes accuracy. He messed up every kind of shot in the 5 games I saw just now. Backhand, forehand, volleys, returns, the whole works. Everything was off today except the serve. Get more consistent, and let's go Mukund!!!

[prasen9]

Maybe instead of "d." in the score above it should be "gd." (got defeated)? or "l." because Sakumu lost

[Done Mod, Jay]

[Rajiv]

How does one lose a match after getting 22-2 on free points from serves alone? 66 points to him and 76 to Tabila. But take away the serve points and it was 44 points to 74 points when the ball was in play. That shows how poorly he hit the shots today. Quite different than two days ago against Fanselow.

But, with the kind of serving he is doing (22 straight aces without a double fault in two matches there!), he will go places. He just needs to get more solid on ground strokes accuracy. He messed up every kind of shot in the 5 games I saw just now. Backhand, forehand, volleys, returns, the whole works. Everything was off today except the serve. Get more consistent, and let's go Mukund!!!

That's a good observation Jay, precisely the fundamental problem ailing Mukund , he just seems to give away the advantage very easily , yesterday too he was 5 -1 up in the TB and almost lost the first set, In the past we have seen in matches he has lost, he had breaks to close out the set/match , but eventually went on to loose. He and his coaches should tackle this grey area where he has to consolidate and maintain the lead when he has his nose in front.

[jaydeep]

Mukund keeps playing in Australia.

At $54K+H Playford-2 Challenger 2019, Australia

[R1] (10) Sasikumar Mukund (IND,236) bye

[jayakris]

Mukund's R2 match, expected tomorrow (Wednesday) will be against a 30 year-old Harry Heliovarra (FIN,762) who beat a qualifier today. On paper, a very winnable match...

[jayakris]

What kind of paper did I think it was on, when I said that above?.... Not when your guy hits 2 boneheaded shots, following every impressive winner. He is so unsteady in his ground strokes. Today, Mukund's serve was also not there to help him out, as he went 6 Aces & 3 DFs. I did like how he stayed aggressive and did not fold easily on 2 match points on his serve at 2-5 (which went to several deuces) though. But his basic problem today was that he just could not return Heliovarra's serve. Mind you, that dude's serve did not seem like any hot stuff to me. Mukund was simply not adjusting to the serve and rarely was he ready for where the wily veteran 30 year-old would place it. There must have been some 10-15 service winners to go with 8 aces from that guy. Mukund needs to work on his service returns. They both had one break each in the first set, and Mukund got broken in his first service game of the second set. Somewhat of a close match, where he had to cut down on his own mistakes by around 5 or 6 points at the right junctures. He couldn't, and Harri made him pay. The question I want an answer on, is whether Mukund will get better and more accurate on his strokes, or whether it has been staying the same all along. Hope he gets better.

At $54K+H Playford-2 Challenger 2019, Australia (hard)

[R2] (10) Sasikumar Mukund (IND,235) l. Harri Heliovarra (FIN,762), 67(4) 36

[sameerph]

Mukund has made a late entry as an altenate in Bratislava Challenger. Looks like he is trying his all to get into AO qualies. He has a tough first round match though.

At $135K(+H) Bratislava Challenger, Slovakia (Indoor hard)

[R1] Sasi Kumar Mukund (IND,248) vs. Oscar Otte (GER,163)

Fifth match on court 3 today.

[jayakris]

At $135K(+H) Bratislava Challenger, Slovakia (Indoor hard)

[R1] Sasi Kumar Mukund (IND,248) l. Oscar Otte (GER,163), 16 26

A quick loss in 46 minutes. I saw a few games of the match in the second set. The same old story with Mukund. A very good shot, or at times even a brilliant shot, followed by two poor shots. Just no accuracy in his ground strokes, even when his decision-making looks quite fine. He mishits the ball way too often, to win points at this level. It is almost never that he wins a rally of more than 6 or 8 shots, and about half the time he loses the points on a poor stroke and not necessarily a forced error. His service returns are also a bit poor, quite often. Will it all improve? It can, I suppose... It just needs to, for him to make a move up to the next level to inside top-200.

[jayakris]

At the €46,600+H Maia Challenger, Portugal (Red clay)

[R1] Sasi Kumar Mukund (IND,261) vs Daniel Masur (GER,257)

The match must be on Tuesday. If Mukund wins, he will run into the second seed Tomas Fabbiano (ITA,116). This event is on clay, so I have no idea what form Mukund will show, and if it would be at the level he showed at Pune.

[knarayen]

At the $54K+H Traralgon Challenger 2019, Australia (hard)

[R3] (10) Sasikumar Mukund (IND,236) l. (8) Alejandro Tabilo (CHI,216), 46 36

I only saw the final 5 games of the match, from 46 13 onwards till Mukund dropped serve a second time in the set in the 9th game. Mukund was serving aces by the bushel but showed extremely poor ground strokes all along. In fact, he lost 4 out of 5 points if it went to more than 4 shots. Almost unbelievable that he could play so poorly. Why are so many of our players so unsteady from week to week or match to match on the solidity of their ground strokes?? Tabilo was eminently beatable, but he was good enough to go for a decent shot every time Mukund dropped a ball short in the ground stroke exchanges. And it seemed like he would hit one pitiably short every third stroke. So, after serving 13 aces (no DFs) and getting 9 (NINE!) double faults from Tabilo, Mukund still managed to lose the match so listlessly. How does one lose a match after getting 22-2 on free points from serves alone? 66 points to him and 76 to Tabila. But take away the serve points and it was 44 points to 74 points when the ball was in play. That shows how poorly he hit the shots today. Quite different than two days ago against Fanselow.

But, with the kind of serving he is doing (22 straight aces without a double fault in two matches there!), he will go places. He just needs to get more solid on ground strokes accuracy. He messed up every kind of shot in the 5 games I saw just now. Backhand, forehand, volleys, returns, the whole works. Everything was off today except the serve. Get more consistent, and let's go Mukund!!!

I didnt watch this match, but I did watch the one against Duckworth earlier. Frankly I am very puzzled...why would he do this? Maybe he is just experimenting, I dont know. There is a maturity that is lacking in these guys. I see Tsitsipas, Zverev - these guys aren’t exactly supermen physically but they are definitely superior mentally - light years ahead in fact. You can see that they are not interested in losing - they play fearlessly but every pattern/play has been well practiced and well thought out. Why cant our guys bring this discipline to their games? I always thought that the one thing missing is military-style boot camp training, which does wonders for anyone’s strength, both mental and physical. The US Davis Cup team Captain (Dennis Ralston) told me in Austin in 1997 when I played him there that he felt that the Indian DC team needed some “military discipline”. That was the difference between the winning US DC teams (Stan Smith and Arthur Ashe both served in the military) and us.

Prof

[sameerph]

One sided loss for Mukund.

At the €46,600+H Maia Challenger, Portugal (Red clay)

[R1] Sasi Kumar Mukund (IND,261) l. Daniel Masur (GER,257) 36 06

So, looks like the transition from hard to clay proved difficult for him.

He will end the year somewhere around 270 now, not enough for getting into AO qualies but decent improvement from 339 at the end of last year ( and 426 at the end of 2017). Year by year he is making steady improvement in his rankings. Hopefully, next year he will take steps towards top 200.

[PKBasu]

Absolute massacre by a player ranked at almost the same level. It was foolhardy to dash across continents to play this week.