Sahaja Yamalapalli thread

[jayakris]

Sahaja vs Vidmanova - ITF's live stream ...

Sahaja started right off the bat hitting only her harder shots. She had to saved two BPs from 30-40 on her serve in the first game, but then went on a got stream winning 15 of 17 points to lead 4-0, up two breaks. Stunningly good shot making from Sahaja. Make it 19 of 22 points... 5-0... She hit 3 shots out after 5-0 30-30 on Vidmanova's serve, but from 30-30 on her own serve, played two excellent points and converted the set point with a fantastic backhand down the line! 61 00 she is ahead.

I think Dinesh can now be surprised, as she got a set off Vidmanova. Frankly I am surprised too -- at the shot-making that we have seen so far. Can she keep it up?

Has missed some shots since the 6th game of the first set, but she is still playing well and the shot selection has been very good so far. 61 01. Two drop shots from Vid (one Sahaja should have hit rather than give up) and a netted volley at AD out BP. First unforced error of the match, I think. Broken. 61 02.

Sahaja is frequently hitting the net now, so has lost her edge. Not judging the bounce well. Maybe the court needs to be watered after the second set? Still down one break 61 14. Holds at love. 61 24... She has totally lost her form now, and looks out of energy. Got broken at 15-40 set point. 61 26 00

I need to step out... Hope Sahaja comes back and wins this. They have watered the courts, so the changed bounce hopefully will help her. Not sure.

[Dinesh]

^^^ She starts with a break off Dasha’s serve so perhaps the watering helped. I want to see her hold service games though (started watching when she double faulted to lose the 2nd set). Let’s go, SY!

She then lost 2 games in a row. I stopped watching.

[Omkara]

She lost

[arjun2761]

Decent performance from Sahara! Her opponent is lowly ranked only because she hasn’t played much on the wta tour because of college play. However, she is 23-3 in her 5 weeks on the tour including a win over #134.

[jayakris]

For the record,

[SF] (1) Sahaja Yamalapalli (IND,303) l. Darja Vidmanova (CZE,594), 61 26 36

Basically, I think Sahaja's legs lost their edge after that hot start. She ran down drop shots in the first set and hit winners off them properly, but seemed to lose a bit of edge in her movements. Same with baseline retrieval shots. She really showed much quicker movements than I have seen from her before. That shocked me, actually. I am not an expert, but I think clay does not give as much reaction as hard courts, and the lower leg muscles work extra (over split seconds longer to generate reaction from the ground) and so can get tired more quickly. Maybe calf muscles. Unlike in the previous 3 matches, Sahaja was hitting with her hard-court power in the first set of the SF. After the first set, we could see that she was less confident of her legs, starting from a drop shot she gave up on, after almost reaching it. Once she lost the mobility edge, it became suddenly tougher to generate power to finish points like in the first set. That is what I think happened here.

In my opinion, she should have asked for a physio and gone for a quick leg massage, and it might have helped. This is all learning experience for Sahaja (I assume she did not get the advice from Shalini Thakur in Sahaja's only high-level red clay match against a top quality player in her career, which was at BJK)

Avoiding tired legs is important on clay. Maybe the experts amongst you can comment about that.

[SaniaFan]

She lost. You need to correct the result above.

[sameerph]

Sahaja is new India #1 this week with a ranking of #302. Ankita has gone down to #307 this week. Last 2-3 times, Ankita had gone down she had come back stronger to gain back the India #1 ranking. Lets see what she does this time.

Next week, Sahaja will go further up with 9 additional points from this week. She will be 12 points ahead of Ankita and Ankita has 18 points to defend next week. Ankita will be seeded at W75 in Perth, Australia but will need to make the final there to fain back the India #1 spot.

[Omkara]

It's good to hear a new name....

[arjun2761]

Sahaja is new India #1 this week with a ranking of #302. Ankita has gone down to #307 this week. Last 2-3 times, Ankita had gone down she had come back stronger to gain back the India #1 ranking. Lets see what she does this time.

Next week, Sahaja will go further up with 9 additional points from this week. She will be 12 points ahead of Ankita and Ankita has 18 points to defend next week. Ankita will be seeded at W75 in Perth, Australia but will need to make the final there to fain back the India #1 spot.

Ankita does pride herself on being India's #1 and generally plays really well when that status is threatened. Not sure if the passage of time has caught up with her but if not, expect her to play well now to regain the Indian #1 mantle.

[jayakris]

At this week's ITF W35 in Punta Cana, Dominican Republic (Clay)

[R1] (1) Sahaja Yamalapalli (IND,302) vs (WC) Katya Ramirez (MEX,ITF-883), Wednesday

[R1] (2) Zhibek Kulambayeva (KAZ)/ Sahaja Yamalapalli (IND) vs Kolie Allen (USA)/ Hibah Shaikh (USA), Tuesday

A similar draw like last week in singles, for Sahaja. The first round should not be too tough. The second round may be against a beatable Colombian. If the rankings hold up, she will run into Darja Vidmanova in the QF. Darja lost the final in three sets last week, so she is not as unbeatable as I thought though.

[Dinesh]

If the rankings hold up, she will run into Darja Vidmanova in the QF. Darja lost the final in three sets last week, so she is not as unbeatable as I thought though.

Actually, it was Dasha who beat her fellow Georgia bulldog teammate, Alexandra Vecic from Germany who’s ranked #22 in the NCAA charts. It was a pretty even keeled match that lasted 3h 36m (although the German fessed up a 4-1 lead in the decider).

[jayakris]

^^^ Oh, Dasha won? I had seen that she was down 1-4 in the third and thought she lost when I saw the 6-4 third set score. Probably didn't look closely at the scoreboard as I didn't think she would make yet another comeback in the end!!

So we had it right in our guess that she was the one to beat at Punta ... Only Sahaja and Vecic took even a set off her, and she came back on both of them. Hopefully she will run out of gas this week. Zakarliyuk whom she plays in the R1 is not a bad player. Former top-400 who was away for a year and half and started only this summer again (though hasn't looked great in a few events).

[jayakris]

[R1] (2) Zhibek Kulambayeva (KAZ)/ Sahaja Yamalapalli (IND) d. Kolie Allen (USA)/ Hibah Shaikh (USA), 63 62
[QF] (2) Zhibek Kulambayeva (KAZ)/ Sahaja Yamalapalli (IND) vs Mariana Isabel Higuita Barraza (COL)/ Fernanda Guadalupe Regalado Macias (MEX)

[jayakris]

[R1] (1) Sahaja Yamalapalli (IND,302) d. (WC) Katya Ramirez (MEX,ITF-883), 62 60
so
[R2] (1) Sahaja Yamalapalli (IND,302) vs Yuliana Monroy (COL,805)

Today's match is probably one of the longest 62 60 matches you would ever see. It should have been over in 50 minutes but it went on for an hour and 40 minutes, at no point during which it looked like the 24 year old Mexican wildcard who had never earned a WTA point in her career could threaten Sahaja. Maybe the difference in game levels affected Sahaja's focus, as she repeatedly ran into trouble on her own service games, losing points left and right on unforced errors - hittin into the net or hitting out. After getting broken in the first and 5th games, she no longer got broken, as she saved 9 of 11 break points that she created all on her own ( ) ... I mean, it was like Sahaja could put in a serve and one shot for a winner to take a point any time. But she still served 71 times and gave up 33 points to Katya - who I think earned only 5 points out of them with her shots, if even that. I would like to think that Sahaja was experimenting with some shots, bit it didn't look like that either. So a weird match, really! But I don't think Sahaja was exerting too much or anything, so the extra time on court was probably no big deal.

[PKBasu]

Actually, I don't see why she is playing these low-level W15 tournaments where she is the top seed. There is no upside, only downsides for the top seed, with everything gunning for her as the big scalp in the tournament. Perhaps it is to get some matches under the belt on clay. Or some easy points to keep in the kitty before venturing into higher-level tournaments (W60s and W100s or higher). I'm waiting for her to play the bigger tournaments.