Niki Kaliyanda Poonacha thread

[PKBasu]

....that 772 is his doubles ranking (displayed on his ATP Profile page).

[arjun2761]

Congratulations to Niki on his second title. And a huge thanks for saving us from a disastrous series of Futures with this win.

I think he heard Atithee and decided single-handedly to prove him wrong right here and right now.

Awesome win for him and hopefully he will now feel confident to move up into the next tier (top 500)...

[prasen9]

But Atithee will say this is one guy. The rest prove the rule, this is the exception.

[Dinesh]

Niki has been playing in Tunisia for the last one month or so and has reached singles QF twice and a result of SF or better in the doubles draw with partner Rithvik Bollipalli for the 4th consecutive week.

Results this week:

R1 Niki Kaliyanda Poonacha(933) 6-3 7-5 Sheng Tan (CHN,1838)
R2 Niki Kaliyanda Poonacha(933) 2-6 4-6 Constantin Bittoun Kouzmine (FRA,858)

Doubles:

R1 [4] Niki Kaliyanda Poonacha(655)/ Rithvik Bollipalli (1287) 6-2 6-3 Cyril Respaut (FRA,1950)/ Pierre Delage (FRA,882)
QF [4] Niki Kaliyanda Poonacha(655)/ Rithvik Bollipalli (1287) 6-4 6-2 Noah Lopez (SUI,1624)/ Ignasi De Rueda De Genover (ESP,1393)
SF [4] Niki Kaliyanda Poonacha(655)/ Rithvik Bollipalli (1287) 6-3 6-2 [2] Baoluo Zheng (CHN,810)/ Maximus Jones (THA,582)
F [4] Niki Kaliyanda Poonacha(655)/ Rithvik Bollipalli (1287) versus Majun Li (CHN,UNR)/ Sheng Tan (CHN,UNR)

Hopefully, our pair will lift their first title together this week.

[jayakris]

^^^ They did win 63 64 in that final.

Niki, the mystery! The one who shows up out of the blue somewhere and goes on a run... I guess here he showed up literally with just somebody and went on a doubles run. This week he has qualified in to the Monastir M15 and reached a QF with an upset of a 6th seed. See the misc.results thread

[jayakris]

After Dinesh's update above, Niki continued in Monastir, Tunisia for 2.5 months more (some 14 events in a row just in Tunisia!). Only two more singles QFs and a couple of second rounds in those M15 events though. He was only able to raise his ranking from near 1000 to about 850 in that period. No much near the #605 career high he had in 2019. Niki has raised his doubles rank from about #750 to #535 (near his career high of 532 from 4 years ago, which he should go past in a week)

But Niki and Rithvik Bollipalli had one more M15 doubles title (a couple of weeks ago) since the report above, and a couple more semifinals. They have reached the double final this week again, and this is in the only M25 they have played in Tunisia. I think Niki finishes his Monastir stay of 4 months now and returns to India (I think he is in the Indian events' entry list).

Niki and Rithvik are the only Indian players, men or women, playing in a pro event this weekend. Nobody else went past QFs of singles or SFs of doubles

[jayakris]

Niki and Rithvik won the final today at the Monsatir M25, upsetting the 4th seeds James Frawley (AUS) and Christoph Negritu (GER), 63 26 [10-6]... So they leave Monsatir on a nice note!

[Dinesh]

Do we not have a team thread for Niki&Rithvik? They are in the entry list of an Italian challenger 75 next week. There are 5 challengers next week and the week after (including Korea). Hopefully, they will get a direct MD spot at the Korean CHs.

[jayakris]

For doubles, we need a challenger win. Just setting an arbitrary rule ....

[prasen9]

I second that.

[Dinesh]

Do we not have a team thread for Niki&Rithvik? They are in the entry list of an Italian challenger 75 next week. There are 5 challengers next week and the week after (including Korea). Hopefully, they will get a direct MD spot at the Korean CHs.

They withdrew from next week’s Italian challenger.

[Dinesh]

Niki appears in the doubles entry list for next week’s Tunis Challenger75, partnering Australian Adam Taylor.

Interestingly, Rithvik is in Serbia teaming with Sai Karteek Reddy at the M25 Kursumlijska Banja ITF. This pair is the top seed. (Will post results of their first round doubles in the Misc players thread…)

Good call on establishing that arbitrary rule to create a pair thread

[sameerph]

Strange that Niki and Rithwik are not playing together after such a successful stint at higher futures level. They could have made it together for that Turin Challenger.

[Dinesh]

Perhaps, Rithvik does not have a visa. And since Serbia doesn’t require a visa for Indian passport holders, is taking advantage of it. He’s also entered there with SKRG for another M25 event next week. Btw this pair won their first round doubles today.

[VReddy]

Perhaps, Rithvik does not have a visa. And since Serbia doesn’t require a visa for Indian passport holders, is taking advantage of it. He’s also entered there with SKRG for another M25 event next week. Btw this pair won their first round doubles today.

https://www.schengenvisainfo.com/news/s ... ry-1-2023/