ITF Junior Circuit 2024 India

[jayakris]

At the Indore J60, titles for 15 year old Arnav Paparkar and 14 old year Diya Ramesh. Both won with identical score line of 76 60 against their older opponents. Arnav again showing his potential, both him and Diya with their first ITF junior titles.

Arnav Paparkar seems to be quite good. He had those wins over Kriish and Cahir in his surprise run to the J100 final in Pune last month, and now a few more good wins. He will move up from #735 to inside #470 now. Diya Ramesh is also looking good. She will move up from #840 to inside #450 too.

Arnav will be the highest ranked 15 year old now (2008 born). 14 year old Vihaan is the only younger player ranked ahead of him.

Diya will be the 2nd highest ranked 14 year old now (2009 born). Only Maaya is ahead of her.

[jayakris]

Vihaan Reddy is listed under USA this week at the Indian Wells J300. He got an AITA wildcard to the main draw for that too... He was part of ITF's Asian 14 and under developmental team under Indian colors (played in two junior events in China and all that) and had also taken an AITA wildcard to the main draw of the J200 in Delhi in January, but we hear that his dad was already talking to USTA too... I guess he had to do whatever was best for Vihaan. A loss for India

Aditya Govila is in the main draw and his R1 opponent is none other than Vihaan. Hopefully some poetic justice can be handed out.

Krisha Mahendran is in the girl's main draw and Aishi Bisht qualified in. Aishi, also from California, is only 15 and is very talented. She had three upset wins in the qualies this weekend over American kids including the qualies 3rd seed... Krisha has not even come to India in a long time, but Aishi had toured and done well inn India recently... She too got AITA's wildcards at the Delhi J60 (which she won last November) and at the Delhi J200 in January. I hope she also won't pull a Vihaan type switcheroo, but I am not too keen on getting excited about Aishi at this point... Same for Krisha, who I think will end up in US college tennis, as I have been predicting since early last year.

[jayakris]

^^^ Vihaan (USA) beat Aditya Govila (IND), 63 76(4) in R64 but went down to the 13th seed in R32 at the Indian Wells J300 ... Aishi Bisht (IND) lost in the R1... #150 Krisha Mahendran (IND) had a surprisingly easy 63 61 win over #117 Trinetra Vijayakrumar (USA) but could not get past the 3rd seed Thea Frodin (USA,45) in a close 57 57 match...

[jayakris]

15 year old Aradhya Kshitij won the Madurai J30 last week, beating 17 yr old Kevin Titus Suresh in the final ... On the girl's side, 15 yr old Kashvi Sunil took the title over 16 yr old Harshini Nagaraj.

At this week's J60 in Gurugram, 15 year old 4th seed Samarth Sahita beat 16 year old top seed Aarjun Pandit 46 62 63 today to take the title.. Samarth had beaten Aradhya in the semifinal, ending his eight match win streak, too. The girl's side totally disappointed at Gurugram, as no Indian (Prisha, Diya Ramesh, Harithasree, Harshini, Sreenidhi etc) could reach even the SF. Looks like Maaya Rajeswaran, who didn't play there, is the only high-level talent in the juniors as of now.

I had not taken Samarth Sahita all that seriously so far, but he had a pretty good run this week, and appears to be on an upswing. He will now be the highest-ranked 2008-born Indian junior at around #375. He has two more years to play juniors after this year.

[jayakris]

Our "next line of girls" continue to have a horrible time, even in J60s in India. Really bad results at the Dehradun J60... I had some hope on at least one among Prisha, Harithasree, Diya Suresh, etc becoming good this year, but they have all seemingly regressed. 5th seed Prisha (who I thought was most talented after Maaya, but maybe not so anymore) got upset by Harithasree, who then lost to wildcard Diya Chaudhary. 4th seed Diya Suresh proceeded to get upset by Dinara DeSilva of Sri Lanka. Losing to a Sri Lankan player is really terrible, even if Dinara seems to be one of the better ones to come out of Sri Lanka in years. So we only have wildcard Diya Chaudhary playing the top seed next, as the only Indian even in the QF... I don't remember our girls doing this badly in a home event.

The boys' side has gone generally as expected so far. 6 boys are in the QFs including Aarjun Pandit and Samarth Sahita.

[jayakris]

At this week's J60 in Dehradun, 15 yr old Samarth Sahita (IND,401)'s win streak ended at 8 matches, as the 4th seed lost to the 2nd seed Hyu Kawanishi (JPN,315), 46 67(4) in the SF. The interesting news was another 15 year old making a surprising run to the other semi, as Praneel Sharma (IND,982) upset the talented top seed Arjun Pandit (IND,245) in a shockingly one-sided QF, 63 61, before he lost in a close match, 26 62 67(4) to the eventual winner Oswaldo Alejandro Reyes Tirado (MEX,410).

The girls' side collectively dropped an egg, as the only Indian in even the QF, wildcard Diya Chaudhary, lost the QF to the top seed and eventual winner Rioko Umekuni (JPN,311).