Rajeev Ram thread...

[arjun2761]

Congrats to Rajeev for winning a challenger title!

[F] Rajeev Ram (USA, 111) d Andre Ghem (BRA) 4-6, 6-4, 6-3

Title moves Rajeev to #88 in the live rankings.

[PKBasu]

Good job on jumping back to top-100 in singles!

[sameerph]

Rajeev Ram won the $40+H challenger in Leon, Mexico last week.

These are his results last week -

At $40K+H Leon challenger, Mexico

[R1] (5) Rajeev RAM (USA) d. Tsung-Hua YANG (TPE) 64 64
[R2] (5) Rajeev RAM (USA) d. (Q) Kevin KING (USA) 62 46 75
[QF] (5) Rajeev RAM (USA) d. (4) Pierre-Hugues HERBERT (FRA) 64 62
[SF] (5) Rajeev RAM (USA) d. Adrian MENENDEZ-MACEIRAS (ESP) 64 76(5)
[F] [5] Rajeev RAM (USA) d. (7) Samuel GROTH (AUS) 62 62

With that title , Rajeev has moved up 10 places to be ranked 121 in singles this week. He has been hovering about the rankings between 100 to 150 for last 1 year trying to make a breakthrough to the top 100 and beyond his career high ranking of 78.

[knarayen]

This is good news....lets hope he takes advantage of the big points and closes them out. He tweeted earlier that in one of his matches, he had won more points than his opponent and still lost, to which I tweeted back "more important to win the big points". I'm sure he knows this already - doesn't hurt for someone to remind him though.

[PKBasu]

Rajeev Ram's ranking keeps yo-yo-ing, and is now in one of its down-swings -- at 157. But he has won a round at his favourite tournament, beating Matthew Ebden (AUS, 78) in R1 of singles at Newport -- and will play Jack Sock in R2 today.

[PKBasu]

Rajeev lost to Sock in R2 of singles, but is in the doubles final at Newport -- playing with Erlich, against Hewitt/Guccione. Next week, the same pair will play top seeded Stepanek/Pospisil in R1 at Bogota...

[Nitin]

This was a triumphant week for Rajeev. He won both singles and doubles titles at $100,000 +H Challenger at Guadalajara, Mexico.

[PKBasu]

Rajeev Ram beat John Isner (the top seed) in three tight sets at Newport, carrying on a tradition of the top seed getting ousted in R1 there. Rajeev of course is a former singles (and doubles) champion there.

[PKBasu]

Here's the ATP report on the match:

http://www.atpworldtour.com/en/news/new ... haas-isner

[sameerph]

Rajeev Ram has made his second Newport singles final after beating Sugita,Mannarino and JP Smith after upseting Isner in first round. He will play big serving 36 year old Ivo Karlovic in the final.

[PKBasu]

Yes, good job by Rajeev to make the singles final at Newport again. Karlovic of course is another ex-champion who loves to play at Newport. The final will be tough!
Rajeev and Austin Krajicek lost the doubles SF to Marray-Qureshi -- another pair of grass specialists.

[Peter]

And Rajeev WINS Newport for the second time. First time was back in 2009. What an awesome achievement this is!

For some perspective, Leander won Newport (beating Pete Sampras, iirc) for his only ATP singles title. Somdev has got to two finals (Chennai, 2009 & Johannesburg, 2011).

[Sin Hombre]

He might have been a top 10 player if he was born 2 decades earlier.

[knarayen]

Rajeev played a great match against karlovic. It was neck-and-neck all the way to the 3rd set tiebreaker, when rajeev lunged for a backhand return on a down-the-middle serve on the deuce court to push it past a stunned karlovic to get his badly needed break, and sealed the deal with two stunning aces to widen the gap to 4-1. He then broke karlovic again and held to close it out. It was like watching sampras all over again. Throwback to an earlier era. And karlovic had beaten djokovic earlier this year, which makes this win even more special.

Prof

[Nitin]

Congratulations to Rajeev on winning his second singles ATP title.
He beat players ranked 18, 152, 33, 134 and 23 to win this title.
His game suits the grass courts at Newport very well.