Zeel Desai thread

[Dinesh]

Zeel has also reached the doubles SF with her Russian partner this week.

R1 Zeel Desai/ Anastasia Tikhonova BYE
QF Zeel Desai/ Anastasia Tikhonova (IND/RUS) 5-7 6-3 12-10 [2] Victoria Muntean/ Sabina Sharipova (FRA/UZB)
SF Zeel Desai/ Anastasia Tikhonova (IND/RUS) vs [3] Weronika Falkowska/Martyna Kubka (POL/POL)

[Dinesh]

Zeel won in straight sets against the current #82 junior. Real test awaits now against the top seed in the semis.

QF [8] Zeel DESAI (745) 7-5 6-4 Martyna KUBKA (POL,881)
SF [8] Zeel DESAI (745) vs [1] Sabina SHARIPOVA (UZB,335)

[sameerph]

Zeel lost in the semi final against the top seed.

[SF] [8] Zeel DESAI (IND,745) l. [1] Sabina SHARIPOVA (UZB,335) 36 46

Still a good start to 2020 by Zeel after a disappointing 2019. She is playing in Tunisia next week too.

[Dinesh]

This week, Zeel started with a straight-set win against a top-100 junior player.

At $15,000 Monastir ITF, Tunisia

R1 Zeel DESAI (746) 6-3 7-5 Sinja KRAUS (AUT,866)
R2 Zeel DESAI (746) vs Alice TUBELLO (FRA,508)

[Dinesh]

Zeel continues upsetting higher ranked players.

R2 Zeel DESAI (746) 6-2 6-0 Alice TUBELLO (FRA,508)

Tougher test awaits now.
QF Zeel DESAI (746) vs (1) Jodie Anna BURRAGE (GBR, 283)

[sameerph]

Zeel lost against the top seed.

[QF] Zeel DESAI (IND,746) l. (1)Jodie Anna BURRAGE (GBR,283) 67(1) 36

Still decent fight against a top 300 player and Zeel's game certainly appears to be back on upswing.

[sameerph]

Zeel is having a good run this week in Egypt.

At $15K ITF Women,Cairo,Egypt

[R1] (5) Zeel Desai (IND,681) d. (Q) Emma Van Poppel (NED,NR) 61 62
[R2] (5) Zeel Desai (IND,681) d. (Q) Zeina Shabban (EGY,NR) 60 60
[QF] (5) Zeel Desai (IND,681) d.(3) Meiling Wang (CHN,514) 46 61 64

Next,

[SF] (5) Zeel Desai (IND,681) vs. (2) Valeriya Yushchenko (RUS,391)

[sameerph]

Zeel is thru to the final with a dominant win against a top 400 player.

At $15K ITF Women,Cairo,Egypt

[SF] (5) Zeel Desai (IND,681) d. (2) Valeriya Yushchenko (RUS,391) 61 60

Zeel is also in the doubles final which will be played later today against top seeds.

In the singles final too she will be up against local top seed tomorrow -

[F] (5) Zeel Desai (IND,681) vs. (1) Sandra Samir (EGY,377)

[suresh]

Where is Zeel playing next week? She is not in the entry list for the Cairo W25 event.

[PKBasu]

Zeel is thru to the final with a dominant win against a top 400 player.

At $15K ITF Women,Cairo,Egypt

[SF] (5) Zeel Desai (IND,681) d. (2) Valeriya Yushchenko (RUS,391) 61 60

Zeel is also in the doubles final which will be played later today...

What a fabulous win over the second seed! And look at that scoreline!

[jayakris]

At $15K ITF Women,Cairo,Egypt

[F] (5) Zeel Desai (IND,681) l. (1) Sandra Samir (EGY,377), 75 67(7) 26

Such a close loss. I don't know if she had match points in the second set but she was at least a couple of points away from winning it. Clearly Zeel was playing at a level near top-350 this week.

[sameerph]

I checked the scores intermittently and at one point Zeel had a matchpoint in second set tie break, maybe she had more but not sure.

The match went on for 3 hour 55 mins which is very long for a 3 set match in which third set was not that close. Maybe there were long long rallies there.

With 6 points, Zeel will move up to around 650 now in the rankings. Of course, she has shown this week that she is capable of playing at a much higher level.

Where is Zeel playing next week? She is not in the entry list for the Cairo W25 event.

She is the entry lists of $15K in Tunisia in next couple of weeks. Probably she would have gone for that 25K tournament in Cairo. She would had to play qualies but with this kind of form she could won a few rounds in main draw too after coming thru qualifying.

[jayakris]

She is the entry lists of $15K in Tunisia in next couple of weeks. Probably she would have gone for that 25K tournament in Cairo. She would had to play qualies but with this kind of form she could won a few rounds in main draw too after coming thru qualifying.

I guess it doesn't hurt to get some good top-600 quality matches at the W15 level in a couple more events like this week, and then to go to 25K events.

[sameerph]

This is a nice article on Zeel -

Zeel’s zeal impresses Clark

As said in the article after a great start to her pro career in 2017, Zeel's performances showed downward curve in last 2 year. Now they have started to show an upward trend again since start of the year. Hopefully she will remain on upward curve now.

This week in Tunisia she is facing a qualifier in first round and may run into 7th seeded Spaniard in second round.

[sameerph]

This week Zeel lost in the second round against seventh seed after a fight.

At $15K ITF Women, Monastir, Tunisia

[R1] Zeel Desai (IND,686) d. Jantje Tilbuerger (GER,1081) 63 63

[R2] Zeel Desai (IND,686) l. (7) Yvonne Cavalle-reimers (ESP,611) 67(4) 63 16

Sad that just when her form was looking up, now it will be an enforced break for Zeel. But, one cannot do much really in these circumstances.