[Tennis] Misc. Results for Indians abroad...

[sameerph]

At W15 in Curtiba, Brazil (Clay) , 20 year old Smriti Bhasin (IND,962) beat Rocio Daniela Merlo (ARG,1210) 63 60 in first round and than beat Maria Carolina Ferreira Turchetto (BRA,1290) 61 63 in second round to make it to QF.

In QF, she will meet second seed Ana Candiotto (BRA,727).

[jayakris]

^^^ Thanks... Ha, didn't even check Curitiba. These days Indians just fly to all kinds of places. I was actually wondering where Smriti Bhasin had gone!

[Dinesh]

Sharmada Balu is doing her thing, reaching the finals at the W15 Tunisia Futures with a Maltese partner. Good luck to this pair!

[jayakris]

Tough fight, but Smriti went down today

[QF] Smriti Bhasin (IND,962) l. (2) Ana Candiotto (BRA,727) 57 64 26

This was her first W15 quarterfinal, I think. Hope the 20 year old will keep improving.

[ornatebrute]

She had a QF in Oran (Algeria) last year but R1 was bye.

[Dinesh]

Sharmada Balu is doing her thing, reaching the finals at the W15 Tunisia Futures with a Maltese partner. Good luck to this pair!

Sharmada won the doubles title. Kudos to her for still trying to be a professional despite having an average career overall. It seems that she still enjoys traveling for tournaments.

[ornatebrute]

https://twitter.com/indtennisdaily/sta ... xS5wBzn3bg
FYI, her doubles career is well above average for Indian standards

[jayakris]

The last first round match for Indians abroad this week, finished just now in Brazil. At the W15 in Recife, BRA (hard):

[R1] (6) Smriti Bhasin (IND,969) d. (Q) Nicolly Ferreira (BRA,ITF-1563), 61 61
[R2] (6) Smriti Bhasin (IND,969) vs Emma Van Poppel (NED,ITF-371)

[jayakris]

Another QF for Smriti.

[R2] (6) Smriti Bhasin (IND,969) d. Emma Van Poppel (NED,ITF-371), 75 61

[Dinesh]

Sharmada Balu has reached the W25 Monastir doubles SF this week with another new partner (an Egyptian). This pair upset the second seeds in the QF. Sahaja and her Chinese partner lost in the QF.

[jayakris]

At the M15 in Recife, Brazil (indoor clay),

[QF] (6) Smriti Bhasin (IND,969) l. Julia Konishi Camargo Silva (IND,798), 57 67(1)

Another good match from the 20 year old, but she couldn't upset the local favorite second seed in the featured evening match. Smriti Bhasin is making me sit up and take note. She is showing continuous improvement.

[Dinesh]

^^^ Really? By playing in lower level events beating unknown opponents earn easy points? I’ll start taking notes when she starts beating quality opponents around her ranking.

P.S I’m not being harsh, but I have seen way too many times that some players tend to go for these easier tournaments just to get ahead and remain a slump.

[jayakris]

Really? By playing in lower level events beating unknown opponents earn easy points? I’ll start taking notes when she starts beating quality opponents around her ranking.
P.S I’m not being harsh, but I have seen way too many times that some players tend to go for these easier tournaments just to get ahead and remain a slump.

You ARE being harsh ... She is indeed playing at her level. Any event where you are ranked below the top 4 seeds, you can't be accused of playing below your level. And she is beating players ranked below her. She has only lost to players ranked above her everywhere. In fact, the last time she lost to a foreigner ranked below her was a whole year ago this week (in Oren, Algeria). She has had only one unexpected loss (to Priyanshi Bhandari at the Pune W40 qualies, after having beaten the same player in straight sets with a bagel 2 weeks earlier; so maybe she wasn't well or something). Otherwise, not a SINGLE loss the whole year to anybody ranked below her. Can we find any other Indian with that record? Not a single upset loss!

Her points are well-earned because she simply does not lose to players below her level. She has not pulled upsets either, but has taken Imamura, Tothova, MP Pere-Garcia, Vaidehi, J.Namigata, Pei-Chi Lee, and Candiotto (all ranked between some 200 and 600 spots above her) to three sets. 7 of her 22 losses to higher ranked players have been in three-setters in the past year. That means she is roughly at a correct ranking. The latest 5 sets against 2 players (2nd seeds) ranked about 200+ above her: 57 64 26 57 67(1) ... Only 2 of her 15 wins over lower ranked players have been 3-setters in the past year. That is all showing clearly that her rankings and results are legit, and that she has earned her way up the rankings. Does it mean anything about how high she will reach? - I don't know.

I have not seen her play, so I have no idea if she has any potential at all... but if you look at her results at age 20, she is showing all indications that she is improving. The consistency in not losing to players below her is striking and has to be taken seriously.

[By the way, I had somewhat the same opinion as you on Smriti, till very recently, Dinesh! I remember that I wrote something fairly dismissive of her some time ago - something like "it is only the players on whom we don't have much hope, who have money to travel around" or something like that - which was indeed after seeing Smriti at Singapore or somewhere and nobody helped Sandeepti to go play there. But I think I was being harsh. So, like I said, I am beginning to take note, that she is not looking bad at all in her "body of work"]

[jayakris]

As Arjun Kadhe doesn't have a thread of his own, and Mukund lost in the qualies at Arkansas before we could start a thread, so I guess I will post tghis score here. At the challenger 75 in Little Rock, Arkansas, USA (Hard):

[R1] Arjun Kadhe (IND)/ Daniel Masur (GER) l. Ji-Sung Nam (KOR)/ Artem Sitak (AUS), 61 67(3) [6-10]

Arjun had played his previous couple of challengers with Ji-Sung Nam in Korea and reached semis, but lost to his earlier partner in a tough match. He had reached a challenger final with Masur, so he went back to him I guess. But Arjun needs to find a regular partner. He has been playing with so many different guys, and it is amazing that he is ranked #123 without even having a regular partner.

[sameerph]

As Arjun Kadhe doesn't have a thread of his own, and Mukund lost in the qualies at Arkansas before we could start a thread, so I guess I will post tghis score here.

Arjun has his own thread-

Arjun Kadhe thread