Junior Circuits Abroad for Indian Kids...

[prasen9]

His coaches need to ensure he grows tall (at least 6') and works on his physique from an early age.

Huh? How can you do that wrt height? Your height is at least 80% determined by your genes. A bit depends upon nutrition. Eat an egg every day. Beyond that you can use HGH perhaps. But that I would not recommend. See: Height and genetics

[arjun2761]

I think nutrition can make a significant difference in height even though fully agree that genes are the most important factor. I think this is especially true if the parents had relatively poor nutrition as compared when the parents and kids have similar nutrition or the parents had decent nutrition as well.

You will see this quite starkly with Indian Americans where their kids are generally significantly taller than their parents. Likewise, in Japan, the younger generation is significantly taller than the older generation after the nutrition levels changed in Japan from the 80s and beyond.

For Indian athletes, in many cases, their parents have relatively poor nutrition from a height/strength perspective, so ensuring promising athletes have good nutrition can make a significant difference not just with height but also in developing the core muscles that are needed for athletic excellence.

[prasen9]

Yes, nutrition matters. And the reason for newer generations even in Denmark or the Netherlands are taller is because they get better nutrition and the issue of child malnutrition and general bad nutrition is true in India. So, you can add a few inches and that may be crucial. But, you cannot make sure that a person is above 6 feet tall because most of it is not in your control.

[sameerph]

17 year old Nishant Dabas has won singles title at J2 in Cairo, Egypt. After quite some time an Indian junior has won a J2 title abroad.

These are his results from this week-

At J2 Cairo, Egypt (Clay)

[R1] Nishant Dabas (IND,171) d. (2) Marcel Kamrowski (POL,85) 62 61
[R2] Nishant Dabas (IND,171) d. Ahmed Zaki (EGY,679) 64 60
[QF] Nishant Dabas (IND,171) d. Cooper Williams (USA,179) 63 64
[SF] Nishant Dabas (IND,171) d. (3) Ilia Simakin (RUS,106) 63 36 76(6)
[F] Nishant Dabas (IND,171) d. Walid Ahouda (MAR,157) 60 64

Nishant will be completing 18 this December. So, unfortunately he will not be eligible for junior circuit next year and wont be able to play junior slams. Still. this will give him good confidence as he transitions to pro tour.

[jayakris]

^^^ Oh, I was not even looking at the Junior results, thinking nobody was doing all that well. This was a nice surprise!! Some really good upsets there too.

[prasen9]

Shabash Dabas!

[sameerph]

This week 17 year old Vaishnavi Adkar reached SF of J2 tournament in Valencia, Spain on clay. She was unseeded and beat 7th seed in second round and a player who earlier upset 3rd seed in the QF before losing to 2nd seed in the semi final. Excellent run on European clay which is rare by an Indian junior.

Vaishnavi will move up to around 115-120 in the ITF junior rankings now. In the same tournament, Rushil Khosla was in boys draw but lost in first round.

There was a weaker J1 in Thailand. However, our 2 boys only made it to the QF - our #1 junior Aman Dahiya and Aryan Shah. They should have made it much deeper but still the points earned will move Aman to inside top 70 in ITF junior rankings again and Aryan somewhere around 130.

[sameerph]

This week Manas Dhamne joined Rushil Khosla and Vaishnavi Adkar at J2 in Benicarlo, Spain.

Rushil had a good win over 145th ranked Swiss player in first round before losing to a Serbian who has gone on to reach final beating the top seed in SF. Manas had an easy first round against a wild card but then had a very good upset win over 113rd ranked Italian in second round but lost in QF to second seed and 46th ranked Czeck player after winning the first set.

Both Rushil and Manas will gain a bit in rankings with these performances and will be both somewhere between 150 and 160 in ITF junior rankings. Both Rushil and Manas are currently among top players in their age group in ITF rankings. Rushil is 6th best from among 2006 born players while Manas is top ranked among 2007 born players.

Vaishnavi ran into same player who she lost to in SF last week in first round and lost. She reached doubles semi final though. Some points earned from there will help her move up a few spots from her current ranking of 118.

Looks like Vaishnavi will be able to play junior grand slam qualies at least this year. Manas and Rushik will need some good runs in next few weeks to get near top 100.

[jayakris]

Neither Manas nor Rushil had much success in the 3-4 J2 and J1 events they played in March (above) but they are both back in action this week. Manas in the Serbia J1 (but he lost in R1 to the top seed)... Rushil, the 16 year old lefty, is at the Cairo J3. Rushil is the second seed and had an easy 62 60 win over a 1600th ranked Egyptian qualifier Mostafa Elbasnaly. 16 yr old Cahir Warik from Mumbai is also there and won his first round. He was the kid who won the Dehradun J5 earlier this year.

[sameerph]

Rushil had another easy 64 61 win over 1103 ranked Egyptian in second round to move to QF. Now faces a tough match though against 274th ranked Egyptian who had won a J3 title here last week and is on a 7 match winning streak ( also won couple of J5 tournaments in Egypt last month).

[jayakris]

At the Cairo J3, [QF] (2) Rushil Khosla (IND,217) l. (7) Nour Fathalla (EGY,274), 67(4) 64 36

Indians seeds not justifying the seeding is the case at least 75 percent of the time, but Rushil is actually quite good, so I expected him to hopefully buck the trend. Not so. This guy Nour is also 16 years old and seems to be a good one. 9 match win streak for him at the J3 level, so he will jump up in rankings quite a bit soon.

[vgan]

At the Cairo J3, [QF] (2) Rushil Khosla (IND,217) l. (7) Nour Fathalla (EGY,274), 67(4) 64 36

Indians seeds not justifying the seeding is the case at least 75 percent of the time, but Rushil is actually quite good, so I expected him to hopefully buck the trend. Not so. This guy Nour is also 16 years old and seems to be a good one. 9 match win streak for him at the J3 level, so he will jump up in rankings quite a bit soon.

Seedings mean nothing as ITF rankings (especially for juniors) dont reflect the right skill level as so many factors come into play. In that aspect, UTR is indicative of real strength. Having said that, Rushil is a wonderful talent.

[jayakris]

^^^ Agree. Very much so!

[jayakris]

There is a J5 going on in Kuwait this week, and two Indians (basically brought up in Gulf but Indians) are in the semis. A 13 year old girl, Jannat Chiripal and a 15 year old boy, Rayan Sajjith Koothrat. Both have had some good results in the middle east and in the few lower-level J5 events they have played - which is why they are the 3rd and 2nd seeds in their draws. Both have played well as expected too. Just mentioning the names to keep an eye on. [EDIT: Rayan Koothrat is in the good 2007 group of boys behind Manas, Kriish and Rethin]

[sameerph]

Next week we will have a big contingent at J1 in Malaysia. As per their new rankings, Manas, Aman Dahiya and Yuvan Nandal will be the top 3 seeds among boys. Aryan Shah will also be seeded. Rushil, Kriish Tyagi and Rethin will also be there. Among girls, Shruti will be top seed and Tejaswi Dabas and Madhurima Sawant will be in the draw.

It will be interesting to see how all these perform at similar level tournament as Asia Oceania championships outside India. Another deep run for some of them will cement their AO juniors main draw place.