Junior Circuits Abroad for Indian Kids...

[sameerph]

The Serbian guy that Manas is playing lost to 6th ranked Chinese Zhou in third set tie break in Cairo last month, the same Chinese whom Manas lost to in 3 sets at AO. So, both look to be at similar level players as of now. Lets see how it goes.

[gbelday]

UTR isn’t perfect but is a good way to gauge levels and both are pretty even. Manas is 12.41 and Serbian guy Ludoski is 12.48. Yi Zhou is 12.85

[jayakris]

Anyway, Manas lost 67 36 to that guy. I remain skeptical of foreign academies improving our young players. Not that they would improve if they don't go to foreign academies and stay in India (definitely not). I am just saying that we are not seeing them improving like many of the foreign players at those academies do. Maybe that is just my impression.

Somdev and Harsh (and Mahesh, and maybe Manisha, Rutuja etc too) improved from playing in the competitive college tennis circuit in the US, to somewhat higher levels than their junior results showed. But the Indians who looked like they had potential early on in the juniors did not seem to improve in those foreign academies. Some who didn't look great in the juniors and went abroad after they had matured a bit already, like Prajnesh, did benefit from foreign academies. Uncertain of what to conclude about Sumit and Karman. In one particular case (Ramkumar), I think the academy developed the player who had every big tool and athleticism needed to be a top-100 player into some sort of a total mess. Again, this is all from very limited data. Anyway, I still remain skeptical.

[Update on Manas: The guy who beat him then upset the 13th seed in the qualies and then another guy who had upset the 6th seed, to make the main draw. So, it was to a good player that Manas lost.]

[jayakris]

At the J300 in Sarawak, Malaysia, 6 of our boys are playing. 3rd seed Aryan Shah and 5th seed Yuvan had first round byes (6-round event) and play tomorrow, but the other four lost today. Aditya Govila (IND,236) lost 36 46 to Zachary Viiala (AUS,231). Daksh Prasad (IND,245) lost 46 16 to Shu Muto (JPN,181). Cahir Warik (IND,253) lost 16 16 to Poonthong Komopisut (THA,226). 15 year old Hitesh Chauhan lost 16 67(0) to Matteo Lavizzari (SUI,155). All the losses were to higher ranked players, but I had hoped for at least some better scorelines.

At the J200 in Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic, 16 yr old Krisha Mahendran (IND,384) beat Katerina Shabashkevich (USA,394), 75 63, and runs into the 10th seed in the R2 of the 6-round event event. The other Indian 16-year-old who has been generally in the Americas lately, Ika Raju Kanumuri (IND,412) lost 36 36 to Carolina Alonso (MEX,233).

[jayakris]

Meanwhile, Indian-Americans have taken over the (appropriately named) Indian Wells J300 in Palm Springs ... Adithya Ganesan is the 7th seed, Aayush Bhat is the 14th seed and our boy Rohan Belday is the 16th seed with R1 byes. Two Indians Parashar Bahardwaj and Krish Arora came through qualifying rounds and have won the R1 to join them. Abhishek Thorat and Hanu Patel were direct entries and Abhishek has also advanced to the R2. So there are SIX Indian-Americans in the round of 32. Not bad. Hope a couple will reach QF or SF. By the way, this guy Parashar Bhardwaj seems to have come out of nowhere to pull some upsets in the qualies and the main draw (but he is 17 years old, so that may be helping too).

On the girls' side Anya Murthy is the 8th seed. Maya Dutta, Sahana Sanjeev and Meera Jesudason were in the first round. Sahana lost and Meera retired, but Maya advanced to R2 to join Anya. (Not sure if Meera is of Indian origin, or of Malaysia/Singapore/SriLanka origin)

[VReddy]

Parashar Bhardwaj seems to have come out of nowhere to pull some upsets in the qualies and the main draw (but he is 17 years old, so that may be helping too).

He was the champion in U16 last year and is a family friend of Varma Alluri.

[jayakris]

^^^ Thank you. I need to go after Varma and get him to come out from under whichever rock he disappeared below!

[jayakris]

At the J200 in Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic, 16 yr old Krisha Mahendran (IND,384) beat Katerina Shabashkevich (USA,394), 75 63, and runs into the 10th seed in the R2 of the 6-round event event.

Krisha upset the 10th seed Valeska Alexandra San Martin Ramirez (ECU,189) easily, 63 63 to reach the final-16 there.

[jayakris]

At the Nonthaburi J300, 3rd seed Aryan Shah (IND,75) beat Satoru Nakajima (JPN,179) 64 64 and 5th seed Yuvan Nandal (IND,63) beat Donghyun Hwang (KOR,141) 62 76(4), to reach the final 16 today.

At the Santo Domingo J200, Krisha Mahendran (IND,384) has reached the QF, with a 63 64 win over Amy Lee (USA,949) who had upset the 7th seed in the first round. Krisha faces the 16th seed who upset the #70 ranked top seed to reach the QF.

[jayakris]

Very good work by our boys at the J300 (earlier grade J1) at Sarawak today. 5th seed Yuvan Nandal (IND,63) again beat the 10th seed Reia Hattori (JPN,107), 36 62 61 and 3rd seed Aryan Shah (IND,75) beat Oskar Grzegorzewski (POL,176), 75 75 to make the quarterfinals. The 100 pts gives Yuvan an extra 40, and Aryan an extra 80 in the point total and move them up to just inside and outside top-60. Aryan plays the 11th seed Amir Milushev (UZB,94) and Yuvan plays the 2nd seed Charlie Camus (AUS,44) next in the QF. Tough matches. But this will help them stay within striking range of making FO, Wimbledon and USO juniors, in the main draw or as top seeds in the qualies. They aren't losing to guys below top-100 much now, which is nice, but they need to start beating top-100 and top-75 guys now though.

[Edit: I misread the draw. Aryan plays a wildcard Amirkhamza Nasridinov (RUS,157) in the QF tomorrow]

[sameerph]

Yuvan also has made the doubles semi finals. So, extra 78/4 i.e 19.5 points from there too. With that he will be inside top 55 and pretty good chance that he will make the main draw of the remaining slams.

[jayakris]

Oh yeah, that too. Typically, doubles don't add much, so I forget to check -- but if you get to SF or better at these events, they do help!

[jayakris]

At the Santo Domingo J200, Krisha Mahendran (IND,384) has reached the QF, with a 63 64 win over Amy Lee (USA,949) who had upset the 7th seed in the first round. Krisha faces the 16th seed who upset the #70 ranked top seed to reach the QF.

Krisha lost 57 36 to the 16th seed Taylor Goetz (USA,218). She has reached the doubles QF also, and has picked up enough points to move up about 70 spots to around #315 as the highest ranked Indian born in 2007 or later (Shruti, Suhita, Sonal and Madhurima ahead of her but they are older).

[jayakris]

Wow, a good win and a very good upset by our guys at the Sarawak J300!

[QF] (3) Aryan Shah (IND,75) d. (WC) Amirkhamza Nasridinov (RUS,157), 63 16 64
[QF] (5) Yuvan Nandal (IND,63) d. (2) Charlie Camus (AUS,44), 62 75
so,
[SF] (3) Aryan Shah (IND,75) vs (16) Seungmin Park (KOR,128)
[SF] (5) Yuvan Nandal (IND,63) vs (15) Pavle Marinkov (AUS,114)

Now both our guys will be ranked right outside top-50, and are pretty much assured of entries at the three upcoming grand slams. It has been while since we had two guys doing something like this. We badly needed this. Can they win tomorrow too? They certainly can, even though both the opponents are playing much better than their rankings show.

[sameerph]

Excellent progress by Aryan and Yuvan this week. If one of then wins the title, that will be one big step for them. Hope they can do that.