End of the year Women's ITF tournaments - Indore/Solapur/Pune/Navi Mumbai

[sanjay5goel]

Are you watching live Jay?

[jayakris]

Are you watching live Jay?

No, I was just following ITF's online scoreboard and stats point-by-point for the last 8 games of the match.

[jayakris]

[QF] (5) Ankita Raina (IND,276) d. Karman Kaur Thandi (IND,288), 75 75

Pretty close match but Ankita had a slight upper hand, as she kept her second serve winning percentage at 40% but Karman struggled to get to 30%.... 89 points to 80 points in the 2 hour 8 minutes match. No aces and 4 DFs by AR. 4 aces and 5 DFs by KKT. So, when the ball was in play, Ankita had an 85 to 72 advantage. Ankita won 68.8% of her first serve points in play, and KKT won 65.4%. The key difference was that AR won 50% (9 of 18) her second serve points in play, while AR won only 36% (9/26) of such point on her 2nd serve. Ankita was better on that count, some of which I assume were rallies. She played better without a doubt, but Karman seems to have been quite up to the task of sparring with he India #1.

There shall be no doubt in anybody's mind on who the India #1 is.

[sameerph]

Karman was up 4-2 in both the sets but could not close out the sets. Yet another QF finish for her which she has lots this year. Unable to convert too many of them to SF and final and none to the title.

[jayakris]

Karman was up 4-2 in both the sets but could not close out the sets. Yet another QF finish for her which she has lots this year. Unable to convert too many of them to SF and final and none to the title.

She seems to have serious trouble winning 3 matches in a row. She gets so many good wins and upsets in the first couple of rounds, but will then have a match where she doesn't have the extra gear to push for a win. Something like that. I am not seeing any of these matches to say more.

[jayakris]

[SF] (5) Ankita Raina (IND,276) vs Diana Marcinkevica (LAT, 294).

Marcinkevica upset the second seed Monova 62 76, so Ankita is the only seeded player left.

[sameerph]

Karman was up 4-2 in both the sets but could not close out the sets. Yet another QF finish for her which she has lots this year. Unable to convert too many of them to SF and final and none to the title.

She seems to have serious trouble winning 3 matches in a row. She gets so many good wins and upsets in the first couple of rounds, but will then have a match where she doesn't have the extra gear to push for a win. Something like that. I am not seeing any of these matches to say more.

True, 15 25K tournaments since May. 10 QF'S which is 66% conversion upto there, then it drops to 33 % for SF upwards ( 5 out of 15) and 15% for final ( 2 out of 15).

Not too bad a stats, need to check how it is for players ranked between 200-300. But, indicates that Karman has still to master this level and move upto next.

[jayakris]

But, indicates that Karman has still to master this level and move upto next.

It also looks like she has reduced that earlier tendency to go several games at a stretch into a funk, after looking like a world-beater for several games in a row. Perhaps the length of the "funk periods" may have reduced in the recent few events? Ankita is the kind of player who can make you go into such funks, but today it seems like Karman didn't allow more than a couple of games of funk, though they came late in the sets. But then she had no blitzkrieg periods either, after which is when she usually goes into funk-periods ... All said and done, I am okay with Karman's progress. Need to step up and win more SFs for sure, next year.

But we do have two players of top-250 quality. We haven't had that in quite a while. And it is so nice to see that Ankita is not going away. She seems to have got energized, after her #1 spot got threatened after such a long period of lull.

[sameerph]

Interesting to see that Pranjala has paired up with her Orange Bowl partner(they had won the event). Hope they win here as well!

Thanks, Vatsal for pointing that out. They are thru to the final with an upset of top seeds.

These are their results this week-

[R1] Pranjala YADLAPALLI (IND) / Tamara ZIDANSEK (SLO) 6-1 6-0 Akanksha Dileep NITTURE (IND) / Saumya VIG (IND)
[QF] Pranjala YADLAPALLI (IND) / Tamara ZIDANSEK (SLO) 6-3 6-2 Ganna POZNIKHIRENKO (UKR) / Valeriya STRAKHOVA (UKR)
[SF] Pranjala YADLAPALLI (IND) / Tamara ZIDANSEK (SLO) 6-4 2-6 (13-11) Olga DOROSHINA (RUS) / Polina MONOVA (RUS) [1]

[F] Pranjala YADLAPALLI (IND) / Tamara ZIDANSEK (SLO) vs. (2) Georgina GARCIA-PEREZ (ESP) / Diana MARCINKEVICA (LAT)

Zidnasek is of course ranked 149 in singles ( way ahead of Pranjals's 482). But, good to see her helping her junior partner here and them going deep here.

[Daniel]

Monova's had a lousy day, getting upset in singles and doubles, while Marcinkevica has won at both!

Ankita Raina should really fancy her chances in the singles event now.

[arjun2761]

[QF] (5) Ankita Raina (IND,276) d. Karman Kaur Thandi (IND,288), 75 75

Pretty close match but Ankita had a slight upper hand, as she kept her second serve winning percentage at 40% but Karman struggled to get to 30%.... 89 points to 80 points in the 2 hour 8 minutes match. No aces and 4 DFs by AR. 4 aces and 5 DFs by KKT. So, when the ball was in play, Ankita had an 85 to 72 advantage.

If you just take away the DFs, then Ankita has 84-76 edge in points. Removing the 4 aces by KKT would make it a 84-72 edge on balls in play which would indicate Ankita having a more significant edge on the ground.

I think Ankita is the highest ranked player remaining, so hopefully she can make it count...

[PKBasu]

Congratulations to Ankita for successfully defending her India #1 ranking. Karman has had a good year, during which she has made significant progress. Next year, she needs to make more SFs, and win more titles at this level.

Great to see Pranjala make the doubles final too.

[jayakris]

[SF] (5) Ankita Raina (IND,276) l. Diana Marcinkevica (LAT, 294), 46 46

So that is that!

[sameerph]

Damn, expected Ankita to go all the way after beating Karman.

Pranjala and her partner also lost tamely in the final.

[F] Pranjala YADLAPALLI (IND) / Tamara ZIDANSEK (SLO) l. (2) Georgina GARCIA-PEREZ (ESP) / Diana MARCINKEVICA (LAT) 06 16

So, end of this series for us.

No finals in any of the weeks. Semi final in 25K for Ankita, couple of QF's at 25K's for Karman, SF's at 10K for Pranjala and Mahak, QF at a 10K and 25K for Rutuja. Overall as not good as results as mens challenger series at home earlier but not too bad too.

[PKBasu]

We have good depth on the women’s side now, but need someone to stand up and stand tall. Ankita sadly seems to be stuck in the 200-300 ranking range and unable to break through. Hopefully, she will make one last dash up in 2018, and Karman, Pranjala, Zeel, Mahak, etc will surge forward!