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Sumit is in the entry list of Qatar F4 futures starting December 4. That is the last week which counts for AO qualies. So, if he loses today he has to try and go and win the title in Qatar futures.
That is all correct. But many (most?) top-100 or op-150 quality players have the skill sets and can have the instincts develop very quickly even in 4 or 5 competitive matches with a partner.
I disagree about top-40. Maybe so for a top-5 or top-15 specialist with some exceptional abilities. If you have a doubles specialist of the LP or MB quality, or even Bops at his best (i.e., top-10 quality) who could just take over the game by themselves, it would be different. I don't think Bops or LP now, or the others can do that. Our singles players, if they play 4 or 5 matches together, will be better than them playing with our current doubles specialists that they haven't played with. We have been dropping the doubles match one after another against any decent team. Time to change what we do.I believe a good doubles player and a singles player with raw doubles skills will do better than two singles players even if they have good raw doubles skills. This is especially true if we have top 40 quality doubles players and the singles players are of the 100-200 level.
That is great. I hadn't checked if he had entered anywhere and was thinking that he would have to play qualies (or get a WC) for the Dec 4 week futures. So he is rather safe to make AO qualies field. Prajnesh is also hopefully rather safe at a 255 live ranking now. Hope Sumit won't push out Prajnesh! ... Anyway, there is a pretty high chance that we will have 4 guys in the AO qualies - YB, RR, SN and PG.
This I can agree with. If the doubles specialist plays with one of our singles guys, then I will certainly consider them. But if Divij is with some doubles specialist partner on the tour next year and has not played for months with any of our three singles players, I would not take him into the team. Same with Bops, LP or Purav. I will still ask guys like Sumeet or Prajnesh to play with Yuki or RR at some events where they are together, just before the DC. There is a lot of flexibility in orchestrating that, as any number of pairings are possible, with all of them in the challenger rankings range. Somehow I don't think MB subscribes to my thoughts on this, though
I thought they were doing the 5-men team only in the lower levels, but just checked and saw that they are going to it from world group on down next year itself. Then we can take 3 singles players and whichever is the best doubles team. Again, I will not give too much weight to doubles specialist teams. On the other hand most teams would bring their best doubles specialist team, so it may be better to send our best doubles specialist team too. Still, I will not count individual doubles rankings too seriously. Whether the team has played together in the immediate period before the DC tie will be a very serious criterion. If it is a pair of singles players and singles-doubles combination that has done reasonably well, I will consider them too.
I am glad that Mahesh doesn't subscribe to this view.I will still ask guys like Sumeet or Prajnesh to play with Yuki or RR at some events where they are together, just before the DC. There is a lot of flexibility in orchestrating that, as any number of pairings are possible, with all of them in the challenger rankings range. Somehow I don't think MB subscribes to my thoughts on this, thoug
There is a common misconception especially among those who haven't played the game, that all singles players can play good doubles. In reality, it requires both a different skill set and a different game strategy/instinct to do well in doubles.