Indian Origin Players Thread

[Sanjay]

My take is this board should be for Indian origin players, not just for those representing India.

The criteria for a a player to have their own thread is to get into the top 150 and stay there for 3 months.

[jayakris]

Nishesh loses the final in straight sets. I’m not sure that this a mental issue as he has a somewhat limited game so that someone who is hot at the challenger level is fully capable of beating him.

Neither a mental issue, nor a game issue. He is mentally quite strong on court. And his game is top notch. I mean REALLY good, in terms of his plain tennis talent. He is like a magician in hitting the rights shots, and he has a wide array of shots he selects from. The effectiveness of those shots may vary depending on the surface, so he is also learning/improving as he goes, playing those shots against players at higher levels.

In my opinion, his physical fitness is not on par with his mind and his game. He is not a weakling or anything, but he is only at a top-250 level of fitness right now. It affects him by the 5th match in succession at these higher levels. No longer has sufficient spring in his legs to pull off some of the shots he has, to precise locations on court, as required against the top-200 quality players you see in the SF and Final. This weekend, he had to play three matches in two days. He had the fitness (which surprised me actually) to pull off a big upset against JJ yesterday despite playing two matches. But there was not much left in the energy reserves for today.

We hear that Nishesh is working on the fitness part, but it is tough for him, as he has also been in college and needed time to study. So, once he gets full time into tennis and can spend enough time on fitness training, he can bring that up to the levels that match the quality of his game and the strengths he has on the mental side.

Just give him time. He will be in the top-100 without an iota of doubt. Possibly even top-50 or top-30 down the line.

[Sanjay]

I would love to see an Indian origin player in the Top 30. It's been decades since Ramesh was 23 in the world. It seems like a magical time when an Indian was in the Top 25.

[jayakris]

^^^ Yeah. Rajeev Ram's #56, Somdev's #62 and Sumit's #68 are the highest since Ramesh krishnan fell out of top-50 on March 20, 1989 at age 27. We have been waiting for over 35 years for a top-50 player with an Indian name. Over 37 years for a top-25 player, since RK fell out of the top-25 for the final time on June 15th, 1987. Would love to see a Nagal or a Basavareddy get to top-50.

[PKBasu]

Excellent wins for Nishesh Basavareddy over JJ Wolf (former #39) and Chris Eubanks (former #29) on the SAME day. Clearly fitness is not much of an issue, and he has the game to pull off some excellent victories over very good players.

But he lost the final in straight sets to a player ranked in the 330s. There is ZERO doubt in my mind about the problem this represents: temperament in finals. Nothing to be ashamed of, but something that needs addressing. He has lost 4 finals (one in a Futures, 3 at the Challenger level), winning a paltry single set in those 4 finals. This is a tell-tale sign of not having the temperament for the big match. (And nervousness/mental-tension can sometimes manifest itself as muscle pulls or other physical issues, by the way).

Regardless, Nishesh is now 199 in the live singles rankings. I think we should start a thread for him as soon as he reaches the top-100.

[VReddy]

^^^ Yeah. Rajeev Ram's #56, Somdev's #62 and Sumit's #68 are the highest since Ramesh krishnan fell out of top-50 on March 20, 1989 at age 27. We have been waiting for over 35 years for a top-50 player with an Indian name. Over 37 years for a top-25 player, since RK fell out of the top-25 for the final time on June 15th, 1987. Would love to see a Nagal or a Basavareddy get to top-50.

I think the big thing is barring Sumit now: Somdev and Rajeev were not ATP Tour regulars, like Sania Mirza (WTA) (I mean defending and earning points purely on the ATP Tour events) for more than an year at a time.

Nishesh and Manas have that chance to be say purely playing on the ATP Tour for like 7-10 yrs continuously if their body allows.

[arjun2761]

Nishesh moves to the Tiburon Challenger final! Beats a lower ranked college player, JP Jones, but in UTR rankings they are the top 2 college players.

#199 Nishesh is defending 70 points in this 2 week ranking period from a F and QF last year. He has defended 44 of those points but his first challenger title would put him ahead with 75 points.

[Sanjay]

Nishesh wins!
His first Challenger.
He is ranked around 200, I think he will go up even more as he plays more ATPs.

[jayakris]

See PKB, this is why I said it was not really mental issues above, as to why he had dropped some finals before. He just took out Spizziri 61 61 in the final. He was just not physically well the previous finals. Actually I am surprised that he was good today, after so many days of playing in recent weeks. Anyway, nice to see Nishesh win the title.

[PKBasu]

No, Jay, he has now overcome his nerves and physical issues in finals, that's all. And how! Very impressive 61 61 win in a final means that he has finally gotten over the finals hump on the fifth attempt. The experience will hopefully stand him in good stead when he makes his first ATP tournament final, and then on to higher levels as well. (I had noticed this feature about him at the junior levels too, in the bigger event SF and finals; as I've said, nerves show up in a number of different, inexplicable ways, sometimes manifesting as a physical reaction, usually just mental).

(I speak from experience: I was never anywhere near an international-quality player; but the only time I made a tournament final, in our district under-16 competition, I played the worst match I had played in a couple of years, against a guy I used to beat around 80% of the time in non-competition matches at either his or my club: in the final, with a crowd watching, I lost 16 16 playing absolutely horribly without even knowing why; it happened a few more times in knock-out or inter-school matches -- always more in tennis than in a team sport -- which is why I feel compassionate empathy with archer Deepika Kumari's repeated Olympic flops).

[jayakris]

^^ Maybe you re right. Sometimes it is also getting some wins and getting over the mental block. One needs to get some finalist or two who are worse at the "title closing-out" nerves, and the block goes away. Not to think about the title as a big thing and just doing the job is what is needed.

[arjun2761]

^^^Nishesh had also beaten the same guy in the Collegiate Spring National finals in 2022, so he was confident that he could win even though his opponent had been college #1 in his storied college career.

[VReddy]

The most impressive part about this run for me is his fitness. He was supposed to be frail and injury prone. He progressively raised his level week after week and finished week 3 with utter dominance. Semis, final and champion in consecutive weeks.

I don't remember Nagal, Prajnesh whom most of us know as supremely fit having the ability to last and dominate from even mid 2nd week (leave aside progressively raising level in the 3rd week).

Probably only Ramkumar can do that amongst the Indian players.

This was super impressive for a frail and injury prone player.

[arjun2761]

^^^^Not sure about Nishesh's injury history but he isn't frail anymore. He looks wiry fit as do many top tennis players. He is listed at 5"11", so has a smaller frame for a top tennis player these days. Therefore, he may not add a lot more power naturally but could if does the right kind of physical work to complement growth in his tennis skills.

The most fit Indians in the tennis world to me were Somdev and Sumit although both of them did have injury issues. LP was also pretty fit but his game style (and size) wasn't ideal for doing well in singles.

I don't consider Ramk very fit tennis wise although he is very remarkable at being injury free. However, I don't see him slugging it out in a physical match and often his appearance at tournaments are very short. Prajnesh was also fit in a lumbering way but then I never considered the likes of John Isner to be particularly fit even if he could play a 140 game set.