This is a forum where users can follow various tournaments that have Indian participation or are held in India. GrandSlams and Davis Cup should also be discussed here.
Atithee wrote: ↑Sun Mar 03, 2024 8:22 am
^^And, yet we clamor for home tournaments.
And, we should. Of course, people come to watch (albeit few). Some interested kids get to see international class players first hand and it creates some economic activity. Why not? We need as much more sports and home tournaments as we can get. The overall impact is always positive. And, the money comes from sponsors. Putting money is sports is always a good idea, imho. What do we lose by having more and more tournaments?
Our players are not machines. They win some games they should lose and lose some games they should win. There is always some stochasticity. Otherwise, the game would be boring. Slightly under par show by our #2 in losing at the semis. We should demand better from them but we should also clamour for more home tournaments.
That has some merit to it. Basically, they should survey the players. The advantage of having four in a row is that foreign players can use one large airfare expenditure and 3 small airfare expenses. Players like having a series of events to play in a country instead of one-offs that may get quite expensive and hard on the body. The advantage of having four in a row is that for players who want to play three in a row some flexibility, you can choose to start from the first week or the second. And, that may result in better participation. For all we care about harvesting points, in the long run, there is not much to gain from getting really cheap points. So, the better the competition, the better it is for our fringe players to understand where they stand and go back to the drawing board to improve. I do not know if two chunks of two is better or four in a row is better. Maybe two chunks of 3 is best. But, that would depend upon what the players really want. Maybe we have the historical data to find out whether we are getting better participation by having four in a row versus when we have had two weeks in a row. Anyone have any memory?
Some good upset wins by our lower ranked players in qualifying at Nagpur this week- 18 year old Anjali Rathi over 3rd seeded Japanese,19 year Joell Nicolle over 19 year old Indian and 18 year old Laxmi Gowda over 8th seeded Japanese.
So, we have 5 Indians who has qualified in main draw. With 4 wild cards and 4 direct entrants, we have 13 Indians in main draw.
Irina Maria BARA(ROU)[1] vs Akanksha Dileep NITTURE(IND)(Q)
Yasmine MANSOURI(FRA) vs Yeonwoo KU(KOR)
Soha SADIQ(IND)(Q) vs Sowjanya BAVISETTI(IND)(WC)
Ekaterina YASHINA(RUS) vs Thasaporn NAKLO(THA)[8]
Justina MIKULSKYTE(LTU)[3] vs Mei YAMAGUCHI(JPN)
Rinon OKUWAKI(JPN)(Q) vs Humera BAHARMUS(IND)(Q)
Ikumi YAMAZAKI(JPN)(Q) vs Vaishnavi ADKAR(IND)(Q)
Daria KUDASHOVA(RUS) vs Fanny OSTLUND(SWE)[6]
Sahaja YAMALAPALLI(IND)[5] vs Vaidehi CHAUDHARI(IND)
Maithili MOTHE(IND)(WC) vs Sonal PATIL(IND)(WC)
Dayeon BACK(KOR) vs Anjali RATHI(IND)(Q)
Ayumi KOSHIISHI(JPN) vs Diana MARCINKEVICA(LAT)[4]
Miriana TONA(ITA)[7] vs Jacqueline CABAJ AWAD(SWE)
Shrivalli Rashmikaa BHAMIDIPATY(IND) vs Anastasia ZOLOTAREVA(RUS)(Q)
Akiko OMAE(JPN) vs Zeel DESAI(IND)
Sejal GOPALBHUTADA(IND)(WC) vs Dalila JAKUPOVIC(SLO)[2]
[R1] (5) Sahaja Yamalapalli (IND,326) d.Vaidehi Chaudhari (IND,516), 36 61 61
[R1] (Q) Soha Sadiq (IND,1334) d.(WC) Sowjanya Bavisetti (IND,983), 62 26 62
[R1] (WC) Sonal Patil (IND, NR/ITF-486) d.(WC) Maithili Mothe (IND, NR/NR), 60 61
[R1] Shrivalli Rashmikaa Bhamidipaty (IND,486) l. (Q) Anastasia Zolotareva (RUS,737), 36 61 46
[R1] Zeel Desai (IND,561) l. Akiko Omae (JPN,683), 36 26
[R1] (Q) Vaishnavi Adkar (IND,833) l. (Q) Ikumi Yamazaki (JPN,731), 63 46 36
[R1] (Q) Humera Baharmus (IND,963) l. (Q) Rinon Okuwaki (JPN,1015), 26 36
[R1] (Q) Akanksha Dileep Nitture (IND,1316) l. (1) Irina Maria Bara (ROU,175), 16 36
[R1] (Q) Anjali Rathi (IND, NR/ITF-572) l. Dayeon Back (KOR,475), 16 16
[R1] (WC) Sejal Gopal Bhutada (IND, NR/1753) l. (2) Dalila Jakupovic (SLO,213), 06 06
That was a pathetic show by Indians. Absolutely pathetic. There were 7 Indians who played foreigners and three of the Indians were higher ranked. Not even one of the seven could pull off a win. This is at a home event. Shameful.
Quite disappointed at Zeel, Shrivalli, and Vaishnavi today. Sahaja actually was all at sea against Vaidehi initially, losing 16 of the first 21 points and finding herself down 0-4 in the first set. She turned it around from then and won 15 of the next 19 games to advance. She gets an easy R2 against Sonal now.
[R2] (5) Sahaja Yamalapalli (IND,326) vs (WC) Sonal Patil (IND, NR/ITF-486)
[R2] (Q) Soha Sadiq (IND,1334) vs Ekaterina Yashina (RUS,591)
Yes, disappointing show. In fact this entire ITF womens series in India has been sort of disappointing. In 5 tournaments nobody has reached a final and only a couple of SF's by Rutuja and Ankita.
Indians surprisingly did well in higher level event, WTA Mumbai.
^^^ Wait, this was in Nagpur... But yeah, on clay. Next week is on Hard courts at Indore. Hope for a better week.
None of our women players excel on clay. Rutuja is okay on the surface. Sahaja is playing on clay for the first time in 18 months (excluding 2 matches on the grey Har-Tru at Charleston which shouldn't be called clay). Actually Sahaja has played only one clay match (a loss in Almaty) in 2 years on clay since she won the $15K on Nagpur in 2022, in which itself she got two foreign player retirements... I was hoping for her to show better abilities by now, but not so.
Two rounds are over at the Nagpur W35 qualies. 8th seed Vaishnavi Adkar, #9 Humera Baharmus, #12 Sahitha Maruri, #13 Saumya Vig, #15 Akanksha Nitture and #16 Soha Sadiq who had Q1 byes won their Q2 and made the Q3. The only unseeded player to make the Q3 with two wins is 15 year old Maaya Rajeswaran who upset the 14th seed Jennifer Luikham (IND,1300) 62 62 in Q2. Except Vaishnavi who plays Sahitha, everybody is up against higher-seeded foreigners, so I am not expecting more than a couple to make the main draw. Hopefully Maaya has enough game to go after the 6th seed Michika Ozeki (JPN,788) who got a good fight from Anjali Rathi and won the Q2 in a close 11-9 STB.
