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

[sameerph]

The good news today was 17 year old qualifier Madhurima Sawant reaching the QF at the Singapore W15. She was up 5-2 on the 8th seeded Australian-Malaysian-half-Indian Anja Nayar when she got a retirement. Smriti Bhasin and Snehal Mane went down to the top seed and 2nd seed in straight sets there. Madhurima is a good player (I remember Gautam picking her out as the one player with the right kind of shot-making at the Indian junior events earlier this year). But she is up against the third seed from Hong Kong in the QF next. That will be tough, because the Hong Kong players are just a whole notch above Indians these days. They seem to have a novel concept called right coaching in Hong Kong. But let us hope for Madhurima to pull an upset. Glad to see her get her first WTA point.

Madhurima lost 16 06 against Hongkong player. So, that is it.

[jayakris]

^^^ I guess I had figured this would happen. Sad that when I can make a call by just seeing which country the opponent is from. I didn't know anything about Ho Ching Wu (who it turns out to be a 31 year old lady who is coming to her career highs in singles inside top-600 now). I just felt that anybody from Hong Kong would probably be better coached and would know tennis better than our youngster - as I think that nobody in India is getting coached all that well these days. It is all sad that I feel that way, but whenever I see our players play, I just cannot think any other way. I don't know what the heck the Indian coaches are coaching our players.

Apologies to whoever who coaches Madhurima (I think it is Hemant Bendre at Pune). I haven't seen her play tennis to say anything about whether she is well-coached or not. Hemant is a good coach, so she must be fine. I am just talking about the general level of play that I see. So many times I think of throwing my laptop and breaking it, watching the elementary mistakes Indian players make and the serious flaws in their games that even a guy who never plays tennis can notice.

As for Madhurima's match, she too had double fault trouble today. Had 9 DFs in 7 games. But I don't think that was the reason for the loss. It seemed like she was not winning too many points after the first 3 or 4 games. I mean, the opponent was 14 years older and would be able to figure out ways to beat a 17 year old in her very first pro-level QF. But congrats to Madhurima for making a QF!

[jayakris]

20 year old Smriti Bhasin has picked some points. She had won a round at the W15 last week in Singapore, and is at the W25 Bujumbura this week. She qualified in with one win over an unranked American, Samantha Imbo Nloga, 63 57 [10-8] and then got a good draw and beat another qualifier, Meisha Kendall-Woseley (USA,NR/ITF-276) today in the R1, 62 63... Smriti gets yet another qualifier in the R2 next, but she must be good, as she upset the 5th seed today.

W25 events give 5 points for second round and 1 for qualifying (much higher than the 1 point from an R1 win at an M15), so she will move up from WTA 1111 to around 950, as the highest ranked 20 year old Indian in WTA in 2 weeks. She will move ahead of 19 year old Sandeepti (but SSR is a better player based on the record so far though). These are cheap points from Burundi, but it helps in tournament entries for Smriti, so it is a good thing.

The other Indians at Bujumbura, namely Sowjanya, Sharmida and Sravya, play their R1s tomorrow. The first two play seeded players. Smriti gets another qualifier in the R2, who upset the 5th seed

[jayakris]

RamK (5th seed) and Digvijay play the M25 first rounds tomorrow (Wednesday) at Jakarta. Mukund (6th seed) also plays his R1 only tomorrow, at th Sharm El Shaikh M25 in Egypt. Due to Easter on Sunday, many events are moving a day late this week.

[sameerph]

Dinesh has opened a thread for Jakarta series tournaments. So, we can discuss it there.

Mukund - we can discuss it in his thread as he is the only one playing in Egypt.

[jayakris]

^^^ Sounds good. Meanwhile, Jennifer lost yet another R1 match. She has become the 100% guaranteed upset of a seed every week in Monastir. Seeded 6th, she lost 63 36 26 to Julia Saner (SWE,832). This was the 10th loss in a row for her, strating from the QF loss to Humera at Gwalior in late December. After an R1 loss in Bhopal in January, she has played 8 straight W15s in Monastir, this year - and has lost all 8 first round matchs there. She should look into what is the issue (almost surely some physical issue). Fix the problem rather than delaying it and wishing for it to go away, Jennifer

[jayakris]

At the W25 in Bujumbura, Burundi, #764 Sowjanya lost 57 16 to the 6th seed Jasmijn Gimbrere (NED,555)... #990 Sravya lost 06 26 to Fanny Ostland (SWE,737)... Sharmada lost 46 15 Ret, to top seed Sada Nahimana (BDI,270)... Lucky loser #1065 E Ashmitha lost 16 26 to Cristina Dinu (ROU,365).

So, only the qualifier Smriti Bhasin made a second round this week from among 6 ladies who played R1 at Burundi and Monastir.

[jayakris]

At the Bujumbura W25, qualifier Smriti Bhasin (IND,1111) lost to a 28 year old qualifier, Tiffany William (GBR,944), 36 16... So no Indians in any quarterfinals in the ITF circuits this week.

[jayakris]

Any given roach can beat an Indian on any given day and our players can't even win a set ... 5th seed Humera Beharmus (IND,824) lost the Q1 at W25 Nottingham today to an 18 year old, Given Roach (GBR,NR), 16 26.

Sowjanya Bavisetti (IND,764) was at the Q1 of the W100 in Oeiras, Portugal, and lost to the #1 seed Nuria Parrizas-Diaz (ESP,80), 06 16... It is unfair for those like Kuria to not enter the event, and then come and play qualies as a wildcard (she would have been the 6th seed in the main draw of the high-quality ITF event).

19 year old Chirag Duhan lost the Q1 at Monastir M15, 67 26 to the 5th seed, Lukas Palovic (SLO,953).

[Dinesh]

Vaishnavi Adkar (18yo, ITF #944) has reached the final qualifying round at W15 Monastir this week, upsetting the top seed (WTA #1132) in QR2. She will face 17yo Julia Peer (ITF #1963) from Italy in the last hurdle for a main draw berth.

[jayakris]

Vaishnavi won 36 62 [10-3], which is also impressive. She went after the qualies top seed after dropping a set. Good to see that!

[jayakris]

Riya Bhatia, who keeps randomly traveling, showed up at the Charleston W100 qualies. She lost 26 46 to the 7th seed Tayloe Ng (WTA,306). I saw parts of this match. Riya is not playing anywhere near her best tennis these days. Out of shape and not moving very well either. Seems to lose concentration very often despite a good shot or rally every now and then. She should take time off and train somewhere, rather than traveling without a purpose to random events.

[jayakris]

Diva Bhatia, a Lucknow girl (no relation to Riya, as far as I can discern) who just turned 17 last month (but had not done too well in the Indian events) showed up at the Trinidad J60 juniors last week and had a couple of upsets of higher ranked juniors in making a QF to get close to top-1500 in the juniors. This week she got a qualifying wildcard to the W25 at Guayaquil (Ecuador) - I have no idea how! ... Anyway, she actually played a pretty good match again today, in a close loss to the 5th seed Mia Popovic (USA,1032), 16 64 [8-10] at Guayaquil. Wonder what the story is, on this girl!

[Dinesh]

^^^ She was leading 7-4 in the MTB when the play was abandoned last night

[jayakris]

^^^ Yikes. How did she let go of such a lead? Still a good show by her. Our players seem to lose from winning positions in 3 out of 4 such cases of postponements very close to the end of matches - from what I have seen over time