Junior Circuits Abroad for Indian Kids...

[sameerph]

Oh anyway a good run by Aryan for 2 week and if my calculations are correct, he will move ahead of Manas as India #1 and in top 75. Both he and Manas will play AO juniors main draw for sure.

In the meantime, I see Aryan in the intial qualies entry list of first of 4 futures which are in India. It will be good practice for him to play against big boys before his junior slam debut.

[jayakris]

^^^ Aryan (#74) did move just ahead of Manas (#75) this week...

Meawhile, our #3 among continuing junior players, Yuvan Nandal (#101, from the 2005 batch with Aryan and very talented) is the third seed at the J2 in Chuncheon, S. Korea, and has reached the QF... Also, 15 year old Rethin Pranav Senthilkumar (#326 and third behind Manas and Kriish among the 2007 kids) is the 2nd seed at the J4 in Nonthaburi, Thailand, and has reached the SF there. "Money rounds" for them start now.

Update: Rethin beat a 9th seeded Filippino player 76(3) 76(3) to reach the final at the Nonthaburi J4... But Yuvan lost 63 26 36 to the 8th seeded Korean Jangjun Kim. The top ranked Asian, world #10 Gerard Campana Lee of Korea who didn't need to play this event, will probably win that J2.

[jayakris]

Rethin (2nd seed) lost the J4 final in Nonthaburi, 26 26 to the 11th seed Pavle Marinkov (AUS,573), who is clearly under-ranked, seeing his upset of three seeds in taking the title. But a decent run by 15 year old Rethin. Second runner-up finish in J4 events for him. He had lost to Pranav Karthik at the Chennai J4.

[jayakris]

Shruti Alhawat (top seed), Madhurima Sawant (12th seed), Yuvan Nandal (3rd seed), Daksh Prasad (12th seed), Aditya Govila and Jaishnav Shinde are at the Asian Closed JB1 in Osan, S.Korea.

Unfortunately, Shruti retired in the second round (R32) there at 26 03... Something must have been bothering her for the last 4 weeks since her 64 36 06 upset loss at the Sarawak J1. She took a week off and struggled through two wins before being upset at the Nonthaburi J2. Took another week off and has now retired in the second match at the Osan JB1. Wonder what is up.

3rd seed Yuvan (#98) has won two easy rounds and is in the R16 round there. Daksh lost in the second round and all others lost in the round of 64.

[jayakris]

Yuvan has made the QF at the Osan JB1. The top 6 seeds have all reached the QFs after 3 rounds there, which is a bit unusual. Yuvan gets an unseeded HKG player, Kwok Shun Dasson Chan next. It would be nice if he can reach the SF and play the top-10 guy, the Asian #1 Gerard Campana Lee of Korea. I think Yuvan has replaced his QF points from the Pune JB1 last December, so his rankings should be high enough in January to make the Australian Open juniors. I think Sameer had mentioned after the JB1 in India that he needed one or two good events this year to be sure of that. He has got one now. Looks like Manas, Aryan, Yuvan and Shruti are all set for AO juniors now.

[sameerph]

Yes, Yuvan will now at least stay at a ranking of around 100 at the end of the year which means a ranking of around 50 at the start of next year. Of course, he can go further by more wins this week or in other tournaments if he plays any for rest of the year.

[sameerph]

Yuvan has made the QF at the Osan JB1. The top 6 seeds have all reached the QFs after 3 rounds there, which is a bit unusual. Yuvan gets an unseeded HKG player, Kwok Shun Dasson Chan next. It would be nice if he can reach the SF and play the top-10 guy, the Asian #1 Gerard Campana Lee of Korea.

Yuvan easily beat the Hongkong player 75 61 to reach SF and will play top 10 player Campana Lee in the SF. Lee is basically in last few months of his junior career and don't know why he is playing so many junior tournaments still. He should have moved on to pro circuit much earlier if he is that good to be top 10 junior. Anyway, not expecting much from Yuvan against him.

Yuvan will be inside top 80 now along with Aryan and Manas although he has 100 points to defend in December from Asian juniors last year.

[jayakris]

Great to see that Yuvan has justified his seeding and will move up now. I think he has 60 points available to replace the 100 he will lose in December, so he will probably drop only to around 90, and should be in great shape for AO when the rankings change in January.

By the way, I found that they had live streams from two courts yesterday at Osan. I believe it was court 5 and court 8 where the Koreans boy and girl were playing QFs when Yuvan's match was on court 6. I am sure they will have a stream for Yuvan's match against Gerard Campana (on court 5 at 11 am; so 7:30 am IST)

Check the page https://www.facebook.com/withKTA/ and https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCWfm_- ... 6vXoKX5tjQ ... The youtube stream should come up there.

[jayakris]

...will play top 10 player Campana Lee in the SF. Lee is basically in last few months of his junior career and don't know why he is playing so many junior tournaments still. He should have moved on to pro circuit much earlier if he is that good to be top 10 junior. Anyway, not expecting much from Yuvan against him.

I think he must be helping out the Federation and organizers. They take their national events seriously, and have a lot of domestic publicity and all that in Korea. I think this guy has a Spanish father and a Korean mother. Now that he is playing for Korea, he may have wanted to establish his national credentials by showing up. He is #7, so a tough guy for Yuvan. Good for Yuvan to get tough matches like this though. Will only help next year.

[jayakris]

Yuvan's match against Gerard Campana Lee about to start - Youtube livestream

Some really good tennis by both guys! The first four games all went to many deuces. 5 BPs faced by Yuvan and 2 by CL. But Yuvan got broken in the 3rd game. Yuvan thought he had a BP in the 4th game but a no-call on an shot from CL drove him mad and he was yelling - "come on, it was this big out... This is f**ing bull**"... Come on Yuvan, don't do that. He continues to be a little agitated, as can be seen in his shots. Anyway 2-3 now after a nice service game from Yuvan. CL holds. 2-4... Yuvan dropped serve at 0-40 in the net game. He is just whacking the ball now, unlike the fabulous tennis h played the first 5 games. He has already lost it, on that bad no-call. Not good. 2-5 and GCL serving. Back to a calmer game now and he forces a 30-40 BP on CL at 2-5... And CL double faults. Now 3-5 and Yuvan serves. Another no-call and he is at 0-40. Saves all three set points (one with an ace). Oh, one winner from him was out by an inch and it is AD out set point again. 4 lobs in a row from CL and 4 overhead kills by Yuvan, and he saves one more SP. Oh, he double faults and it is a 5th SP. 14 shot rally that CL nets. Nice sparring. deuce. IOFH winner, AD in. He pins CL back, slowly moves up and hits an FHCC to hold. Terrific work. 4-5 and CL to serve. CL is a littele flustered, makes 2 mistakes and YN wins a 21 shot rall. 0-40 3 BP. One saved by CL. Fabulous FHCC return winner to the corner, wow. We are even 5-5. Yuvan didn't get TWO calls there, and is down 0-30... 14 shot rally netted by CL. Oh, the first mishit by YN. 15-40 2BP. Nice serve, 30-40. 12 shot rally, Yuvan hitting so damn accurately. Deuce. Return long, AD in. Nice work CL on return, deuce. SW, ad in. ACE!! (no, the ump calls fault). YN goes berserk, and he had every right to. "What are you DOING??" he yells. Okay, he played the 2nd serve point very well to hold. Great stuff, Yuvan, but just don't let these line calls get you. It is home court for the other guy. It happens, kid. Okay, 6-5 now. What great tennis, really. I am enjoying the heck out of it. CL keeps hitting to the line and they just wonn't call any that falls out. Crazy... He holds. 6-6 TB.

Yuvan's hands are terrific on the run. Wow. 2 or 3 superb volleys on dead runs from the baseline so far. I have not seen any of our seniors being able to do that lately (since LP, almost).

TB - YN good serve, 1-0. CL serve fault, but not called. 1-2... CL hitting well, and YN drops two minis, 1-4... 16 shot rally, great winner YN... 2-4, still down a mini. CL dfs.. 3-4 and YN to serve. Now YN dfs... 3-5... return long 4-5 and CL to serve two. 11 shot rally CL nets. 5-5 even. CL hits one out. 6-5 set pt on YN's serve. Makes CL run like a mad man and miss the shot. Yay, He won the set !!! 76(5) 00

CL holds at 30, as two YN shots clip the net. Deuce and AD out BP on YN, but he saves it again with a service winner and another good serve. Holds. 1-1... Strong service game from CL, not allowing YN to get into anything... 1-2... YN needs to get fired up again. A bad line call would help here .. He dfs, and CR plays well in a rally; 0-30... 15-40 2BP after a net from YN. Need to get fort serves in. Ace 30-40... FH heat, deuce. FH out left, AD out. A double fault (I doubt if the second was fault)... Broken, 1-3.. At 0-15 on CL's serve the ump wont call one out and YN sits down pointing "look at the mark. look at the f**ing mark". CUT THAT OUT, kid! You cannot do this on court. "You can't be serious" is fine, but not "f***" ... Yet another no-call. 1-4... They both holds at 15, so 2-5... Now YN df's, and then hits an overhead into the net (and may have hurt his wrist? shakes it off but df's again. saves one SP, 15-40... Great BH DTL winner, 30-40... Mishits an FH long, all even. 76(5) 26 00...

Yuvan needs to stay focused. In my opinion, he has the game to beat Campana Lee if he stays focused. CL is very good; maybe not as good as YN in rallies, but CL is good at some variations also (like lobs and drops that YN doesn't try), to change the rally advantage to his side. But YN has handled that sorta stuff okay.

On serve at 1-2 in the third. YN had a 30-40 BP in the third game but CL came up with three good service winners to hold. He is not a huge server but has enough pop and good placement in his serve. A volley mistake by YN, a great FH DTL winner and a net by YN, 0-40 3BP again. He is not as sharp now as he was earlier. Maybe a getting a bit tired? Broken 1-3... 30-40 BP after CL misses wide. Big serve; deuce. Return netted, and a 10 shot rally ends with a YN hit too long; 1-4... I wonder if YN's wrist is bothering him? He is missing some FHs into the net 15-30 on his serve. two SWs and a BH mishit, deuce. CL reaches a net-chord and hits a great half volley to the corner. Then a return winner on YN who clearly looks tired now and it showed on even the serve; 1-5 and CL serving for the match... YN and CL go to check the net height (maybe that is why YN hit a few into the net?) and they work on fixing the center of the net at the right height. YN basically gave up on the final 4 points as he had nothing left in the tank to mount another comeback.

At the ITF Junior JB1 in Osan, S.Korea (hard):

[SF] (3) Yuvan Nandal (IND,98) l. (1) Gerard Campana Lee (KOR,7), 76(5) 26 16

[jayakris]

The only Indian playing singles abroad past Thursday this week on the International circuit at any level, won a title. It was only a grade-5 title, but it made me at least a little happy.

15 year old Rayan Sajjid Koothrat justified his top seeding and won the J5 in Fujairah, UAE, today - dropping only one tiebreaker set in the process to 5 European players. In order, Rayan beat Zvezdan Pozder (GER) 64 67(7) 62, Matija Putic (SRB) 61 60, Rafael Grosu (ROU) 61 64, Pavlos Tsitsipas (GRE) 76(6) 76(1) and Robert Guna (ROU) 64 64, to take the title. This was the third G5 final of the year for Rayan. He was runner-up at Amman and Kuwait J5s in June and September. I had mentioned Rayan earlier in this thread.

His win in the semifinal was notable. Against Stefan's 17 year old brother, Pavlos Tsitsipas, whom Rayan beat in two tiebreakers.

Rayan is at #759 but will move up to around #650 after this, with three years more to play juniors. Will have to see how he does in J4 and J3 events from now on. He grew up in the Gulf, but is the 4th highest ranked Indian from the great-looking 2007 batch that includes Manas Dhamne, Kriish Tyagi, and Rethin Pranav Senthilkumar ahead of him. Rayan has only played a couple of events in India this year, and he lost to Kriish in two of them, one in a 3-setter. He won the u14 national champion in Delhi in Oct 2021 though (article - Dubai boy the new national u14 tennis champion). Looks like a pretty good player to keep an eye on.

I will certainly watch him, as he is probably the first guy of Kerala roots since Mahesh Bhupathi (who is half-Malayalai) to get anywhere near the top of any AITA rankings that I remember in a long time. There was a Sandra Sasidharan 20 years ago, and I was told that ATP top-750 Manoj Mahadevan who came up in the late 90s had Malayali roots, but that is all I remember from God's own country where God isn't much into tennis at all. Rayan Sajjid's parents seem to be from Malappuram, Kerala.

[jayakris]

17 year olds Aryan Shah and Yuvan Nandal are at the J1 in Bradenton, Florida, USA this week. #74 Aryan gets Aayush Bhat (USA,174) and #84 Yuvan gets Arthur Gea (FRA,44). The opponent for surprise qualifier #514 Aditya Govila is TBD, in the draw posted at ITF. No Indian girl is there.

Great job by a couple of Indian 16 year olds there in the qualies. Aditya Govila (IND,514) beat an Amercian wildcard 61 61, then upset the 12th seeded Patrick Jozwicki (AUT,261) 36 64 [11-9], and then upset Zachary Viiala (AUS,366) 06 63 [10-4]... Viiala had upset the third seed earlier, so that was a good win too. Cahir Warik (IND,485) beat an American wildcard 60 60, and then pulled a big upset of the qualies 2nd seed Jules Leroux (FRA,159), 16 76(5) [10-8] before falling to the 11th seed Albert Pedrico Kravtsov (ESP,238) 26 16 in Q3 ... Hope he gets in as an LL or something.

Rohan Belday was also there in the qualies, but he keeps running into the hot players in these events and is in a bit of a brief slump with 3 or 4 early losses in higher grade junior events. But he is going down after a fight in close matches though, so he will start winning some of these matches later.

[gbelday]

Thanks, Jay! Adi Govila (lives in Singapore) has been training in NJ for the past couple of days and Rohan met him a few times. He’s currently traveling with a coach from NJ. Very nice humble kid and he and his parents seem really committed. He may move to NJ early next year.

Yea, Rohan has been playing well but struggles a bit on clay. Guadalajara was really tough and he had a tough time with the elevation. Couldn’t control his shots and took him a while to find his footing. He has a very offensive game style and it’s almost always on his racquet. Shot selection and margins have to improve. Merida was fine (sea level! But he lost to a good player that he beat on hard courts last year (JiZheng committed to Yale). This week, he lost at Eddie Herr in a super tiebreaker to another good player (12+ UTR). He is putting in the work and hopefully results are around the corner.

On to Orange Bowl qualies next week.

Btw, saw Cahir play in Europe and he’s very crafty. Doesn’t hit the ball but his drops and chips are crazy good.

[jayakris]

^^^ Keep Rohan from getting down on himself... The aggressive players certainly take longer to get steady to win consistently, as the shots need to become accurate. The guy who beat him also upset the top seed and the 13th seed in the qualies, to make the main draw. Rohan made a comeback on him and only lost 6-10 in the STB, so clearly he played him very closely.

Cahir is a shorter guy, from the pictures I saw. I had guessed that he would be crafty. Aditya's results surprised me, though I saw that he had played decently in Korea recently and was watching to see if he had the spark. Seems like he has. That is nice. So he goes by "Adi". Good info

I thought Cahir and Adi must have joined IMG or something and must have had court advantage, but it seems that is not the case. Even better.

[jayakris]

17 year olds Aryan Shah and Yuvan Nandal are at the J1 in Bradenton, Florida, USA this week. #74 Aryan gets Aayush Bhat (USA,174) and #84 Yuvan gets Arthur Gea (FRA,44). The opponent for surprise qualifier #514 Aditya Govila is TBD

It was a bummer that Aryan lost 64 26 16 to Aayush Bhat. The same Aayush that Kriish beat at the Guwahati J4 two weeks ago... Yuvan also went down after a hot start, 64 06 36... I feel Yuvan has all the tools to be a top tennis player, based on how he played Campana Lee in Korea, but he needs to put wins together at this level, keeping his court emotions in check. Aditya plays Phoenix Weir (GBR,124) tomorrow.

[EDIT/Update: Arthur Gea, who beat Yuvan in the first round, went on to win the title. In fact Yuvan was one of only 2 players out of 6 to even take a set off him]