New Delhi, Bhilai M15, Indore, Mumbai M25 - Oct 31-Nov 27, 2022

[jayakris]

Nikki and Rithwik beat Vishnu and his partner in final. Third title in as many weeks for this pair I think. They seem to be on a tear.

Absolute tear! That is their third title in a row. Niki will move up to around 425 this Monday, and with these 25 more points, will get to around 360 one week later. Rithvik will move up near 525 this Monday and then to around 440 a week later. They can go play in many challengers from now on. At only 27 and 21, they have a long time on the tour too. Happy for them.

[jayakris]

The two Korean lucky losers ran out of gas in the end, in their 7th match of the week. One retired against the top seed Oliver Crawford (USA) in the first set and the other lost in easy straight sets to the 3rd seeded Dominik Palan (CZE). At least the foreigners will all be happy. They have all made something from their trip to India (which is never easy), unlike the Indians who make trips abroad and often come out with nothing at all to show for it.

[jayakris]

All you Bombaywaallahs (or Mumbaikars) can now go and see all these guys at Colaba.

Here is the qualifying draw for the Mumbai M25.

I don't see youngsters Chirag Duhan and Aryan Shah in the qualifying draw. Might they have got wildcards to the main draw? Would be great, if so. Madhvin Kamath and Sushant Dabas are in the qualifying draw. The main draw isn't out yet. Looks like Karan Singh, Abhinav Shanmugam, Joao Marcos Nusdeo (BRA) and Vishnu Vardhan who were in the ALT list made the main draw in the end. A few more foreigners have joined this week.

[Rajiv]

All you Bombaywaallahs (or Mumbaikars) can now go and see all these guys at Colaba.

Aaah Jay .. talking like a true Bombayite and using the Bombay jargon of Bombaybaywallah and pinpointing MSLTA courts exact location Colaba.

This precinct (Colaba) is near the Fort area and has a legacy of sporting venues for the various British Military regiments based during that era, Next to the Tennis Courts is the Cooperage football grounds where the iconic Durand & Rovers cup tournaments used to be held.

Have fond memories of going to Colaba for all the Satellite tournaments and for us youngsters one of the reasons to look forward to was the sale of Tennis racquets which the players did going back to their home country and still have the WILSON JACK KRAMER Model which I bought for Rs500 (at that time rupee was 10/11 to the Dollar) from the Nigerian Tony Mmoh father of present day pro Michael Mmoh

[jayakris]

^^^ Wow... You have so much memories!

I was just using google to see where the courts were

[jayakris]

I don't see youngsters Chirag Duhan and Aryan Shah in the qualifying draw. Might they have got wildcards to the main draw? Would be great, if so. Madhvin Kamath and Sushant Dabas are in the qualifying draw.

Main draw. Teenagers Aryan and Chirag did get WCs to the main draw. Good. Aryan is again unlucky with the draw, as he gets the top seed and the Indore winner Oliver Crawford. Chriag gets another wildcard Bharat Kumaran inn the main draw.

In the qualies, top 8 of the 12 seeds have all made the Q3 after two wins each, including the 8th seed Madhvin Kamath. But he has to beat the 4th seed Ryotaro Matsumura to make the main draw. Youngster Sushant Dabas was unlucky to draw the qualies top seed Rishi Reddy in Q1 - he lost 67(4) 76(4) [7-10], so he gave a massive fight. Three Indians are assured to make the main draw from the 6 Q3 matches on Tuesday morning.

[sameerph]

4 of the top 6 seeds in qualies made it to the main draw - 3 Indians- Rishi Reddy, Siddharth Vishwakarma and Faisal Qamar and second seeded Japanese Nishiwaki. Madhvin Kamath upset 4th seeded Japanese Ryotaro Matsumura in straight sets and Raghav Jaisinghani upset 5th seeded Dalwinder Singh.

[jayakris]

Nice to see 21 year old Madhvin continuing to show that he is a solid player. He has qualified in twice now, and got a timely wildcard in Delhi. Reached second round last two weeks in the main draw too.

They had a 5 main draw matches also (two among foreigners and 3 among Indians), and 19 year old Karan Singh upset 23 year old Nitin Kumar Sinha who was once at the top of our junior rankings (but only sneaking into ITF top-100). Nitin has not taken a next step in the pro levels but was a couple of hundred spots above Karan who only just cracked the ATP 1000. Nitin was up a break at 4-2 in the third set before Karan turned the tables on him and won it in a TB. Karan Singh is a tall-enough player who looks physically in good shape to make a run into the top-600 levels right now, to me. We need somebody like him to come up. Way too few good prospects are doing well in the 19 to 25 range in age, younger than Sumit and Mukund.

22 year old Digvijay, the more established prospect in that age range, also won the first round over Abhinav Shanmugam, but 22 year old Adil Kalyanpur went down in cheap straight sets to Rishabh Agarwal. Adil has been in a pretty bad slump after looking good earlier when he went into top-600. In that "next-generation" 19 to 25 group, Adil, Manish Sureshkumar and maybe Dev Javia were guys I had hopes on, but they are all in slumps for now. So my current focus is on Digvijay, Madhvin and Karan.

[jayakris]

Not sure what is up with Manish Sureshkumar, but he has had a terrible time in this Indian circuit. He was the 5th seed but got upset in the first round again, by a Japanese qualifier who now plays Karan Singh in R2. A second round loss to Karan at Delhi and then two first round upsets now, for Manish. At least 7th seed Sid Rawat played fine in a 63 76 win over Madhvin. Digvijay now gets a better R2 match (on paper) against a Russian lucky loser Ivan Denisov who retired against Rishi Reddy in Q3 and then got an R1 retirement from the 2nd seed Ben Patael. The third seed also retired in his match against Siddharth Vishwakarma.

An unranked 19-year old wildcard Sandesh Kurale, beat qualifier Rishi Reddy 63 64. What is the story there? Sandesh never really played juniors and has only played a few matches in the pros. I assume Rishi was not well or something? Sandesh plays the top seed next.

Two Indians are assured to be in the QF (both in the bottom half). Five others play foreigners. I think we will have 3 or 4 Indians in the QF. The bottom half has opened up nicely for Sid and Digvijay to hopefully get to the final - but two Russians will try to stop them. Four Indians play foreigners in the upper half, but the best among them, Niki, has to upset the 7th seed Weber from FRA who looked ominously good in double-bagelling a Japanese qualifier.

Digvijay, Karan and Sandjesh Kurale are the 22-and-under players among the 9 Indians in the second round.

[sameerph]

Feel sad for Manish. He won a futures title at 18 and we had all thought of him as next one who is headed to at least top 250-300 soon. But, sadly 4 years after that his game seems to have regressed. Hope this is temporary and he will get back soon.

An unranked 19-year old wildcard Sandesh Kurale, beat qualifier Rishi Reddy 63 64. What is the story there? Sandesh never really played juniors and has only played a few matches in the pros. I assume Rishi was not well or something? Sandesh plays the top seed next.

Sandesh never really played ITF juniors but had won under 18 nationals in April 2021 beating Manas in the final. He comes from a village in Kolhapur district and has not played much due to financial constraint. Here is a story on him after he won the national title-

Sandesh Kurale: Hitting on fallow farmland to winning national U-18 tennis

[jayakris]

^^^ Thanks, Sameer. Wow, what a great story. I had totally missed this last year. I have one more young kid to keep an eye on. But somebody needs to help him. Kudos to MSLTA for giving him the wildcard.

[sameerph]

Two Indians are assured to be in the QF (both in the bottom half). Five others play foreigners. I think we will have 3 or 4 Indians in the QF. The bottom half has opened up nicely for Sid and Digvijay to hopefully get to the final - but two Russians will try to stop them. Four Indians play foreigners in the upper half, but the best among them, Niki, has to upset the 7th seed Weber from FRA who looked ominously good in double-bagelling a Japanese qualifier.

4 Indians are in QF as expected by you and Niki did upset Weber 64 76(5). Also Digivijay beat Russian lucky loser in a very close match 26 64 76(3).

Sid Rawat and Sid Vishwakarma won all Indian second round matches to make it to QF.

Bottom half now has 3 Indian out of 4. Digvijay to meet Sid Rawat and Sid Vishwakarma to meet Japanese Ryuki Matsuda. Niki will play top seed Crawford in the QF.

[jayakris]

Really nice comeback win by Digvijay there, over the big-serving Russian who actually won more points than him (96 to 89). Digvijay came through when it mattered late, in the final tiebreaker.

Niki has had a tough draw, with Vishnu in R1 and Weber in R2. Now he needs to upset the top seed Crawford, who is in good form.

Was sad to see Karan Singh going down after a good start. Not sure what happened to him from late in the second set against the Japanese qualifier, when he lost 8 games in a row.

Ryuko Matsuda seems to be a good player. He only lost to seeded Florent Bax and Dominik Palan in the previous two events (both 3-setters), and has now upset the Russian 8th seed in the bottom half of the draw. Not sure if Siddharth Viswakarma (though he has played better than expected in this circuit) can beat him in the QF. That means Sid or Digvijay who will be in the semis, will have a tough opponent. Let us see how it goes.

Niki and Rithvik keep on trucking in doubles ... Another 63 63 win and another SF. Niki must be pretty tired, but he is the iron man of Indian tennis, after all.

[jayakris]

Digvijay came back and upset the 6th seed, Sid Rawat, 26 64 64 to make the bottom-half semifinal. Sidhharth Viswakarma is giving a good fight to Ryuki Matsuda, but down 67(6) 00 right now. The upper-half semifinal will be between top seed Oliver Crawford (who beat Niki 62 60) and 4th seed Dominic Palan.

[sameerph]

Digivijay is the only Indian in SF as Sidhharth Viswakarma lost to Japanese Matsuda in straight sets.

Looks like it will be a tough SF for Digivijay against the Japanese tomorrow.

Nikki and Rithwik are in fourth straight final and they are on 15 match winning streak. They play top seeds Vishnu with his Ukranian partner Orlov.