Rohan Bopanna thread...

[Dhruv]

Well hopefully AITA or some sports management agency can can find major sponsors for Harsh. I remember Sunil Y. had mentioned in one of the chats that they were spending a bunch of money on Rohan and Harsh and the others. Now that Globosport has picked up Rohan and Sania they should get some sponsor money and be able to attend a lot of events etc. They also have lined up some sponsors (From their website)
- Reebok
- United Breweries
- Lipton
- Wilson
- Toshiba
- GVK Industries
- The Hindu
- Taj Group of Hotels
- Government of Andhra Pradesh
- Sports Authority of Andhra Pradesh

I also see they have some younger cricket players listed as well as clients so they are doing well. Now what we need is someone like a Globosport to pick up Harsh. We cannot expect just one sports management company to do all the lifting (what is IMG in India doing for tennis, motorsports etc). I guess in light of what Jay has mentioned it may be better if they are with one company but then again that is asking too much I think. In any case, best of luck to both Rohan and Harsh and also Prakash.

[Dhruv]

After having posted the points for Rohan and Harsh I see one very unnerving thing in Rohan's losses. Very often he seems to lose the final set esp in 2 set losses very easily. There are too many 06 and 16's for comfort. Anyone with some sort of explanation.....

[jayakris]

I think you are correct, Dhruv. I think I may have obliquely referred to this in my notes sometime too. May be what happens is that when he runs into trouble (which in his case is probably the serve deserting him), he could be running out of ideas on what to fall back on. I think he needs some strategies on going back to the basics to keep himself in the game, perhaps? The baseline rally guys would probably just start rallying for ever and not go serve and volley when the serve is not helping enough, and wait for the other guy to get impatient make mistakes. Perhaps he needs to learn doing that? .. The serve and villeyers sometimes start pushing too hard when things don't go right and start looking for winners off the volleys which results in volleying mistakes too - after all, volleys are rarely a huge weapon in the scheme and trying tod o too much with it won't help either. Not sure if this is RB's problem; I am hyopthesizing here as I have not seen these matches he has lost. Hopefully some experts could comment.

Jay

[BSharma]

This is just a thought about Rohan's occasional losses of 6-0 or 6-1. Some people feel that he runs out of ideas at those times. To me it looks like he needs a travelling coach to help him figure out a way to not lose. It is expensive to have a travelling coach but if he can take a gamble to have a travelling coach for about two months during the grass court season and hard court season this summer it may pay off in the end. Rohan is at a cross road now - he can move up to the top 50 or 100 rank in the next year or two or he may end up being a journeyman player. My advice to Rohan - take a good look at your game, get advice from the right people, develop a game plan, and then go for broke.

Go Rohan, you can do it!!!

[jayakris]

I don't know if we should propagate the "Rohan runs out of ideas" thing (though I myself may have started it, with my guesses on it - I haven't seen him in one of his losses to know) .. The good thing is that he is in good hands as far as advices goes, with CGK, Mahesh, etc handling him.

One positive aspect I have noticed about Rohan is that he is refreshingly frank in his post-game comments about the mistakes that he makes. The most telling one was how candidly he admitted that at the Tashkent Asian championships final he blew it by thinking ahead about qualifying into Australian Open and not focusing on the job at hand, to beat Motomura. The reports (by the asian federation website reporter himself) then were that he had a hurting arm, which too was true. He could have stuck with that report, but RB himself said later in a press interview that he had to take some blame. I think that kind of willingness to criticize himself will help him get better. Hope it all works out. We need him and Harsh, and we need them pretty much now itself!

Jay

[nkoth]

Rohan is in Uzbekistan this week for the 25K Fergana Challenger.

[R1] (8) Louis Vosloo (RSA, 222) vs Rohan Bopanna (IND, 319)
[R1] (3)Rohan Bopanna/Jonathan Erlich (IND/ISR) vs Radoslav Lukaev/Dmitri Vlasov (BUL/RUS)

Go Ro!
-neil

[jayakris]

Monday score:
[R1] (3)Rohan Bopanna (IND)/ Jonathan Erlich (ISR) d. Radoslav Lukaev (BLR)/ Dmitri Vlasov (RUS), 61 76(3)

Singles R1 tomorrow.

Jay

[Dhruv]

[R1] (8) Louis Vosloo (RSA, 222) d. Rohan Bopanna (IND, 319) 67(5) 61 75

Close match but a loss none the same. 1 point for his efforts. I will update the points etc thread.

So basically, this is it for the next little while till the grass season according to the schedule that I have. A training session in France(synthetic/hard courts) for a couple of weeks is next up and then the Queens club. About 4 points to fall off in a couple of months and Rohan is nearly up to his quota of 18 tournament points so the 1 points will no longer add anything :-?.

[Dhruv]

Today

KEDRIOUK, Alexey (KAZ) / TERESHCHUK, Orest (UKR) d. (3)Rohan Bopanna (IND)/ Jonathan Erlich (ISR) 63 61 .

They then went on to beat (2) LU, Yen-Hsun (TPE) / UDOMCHOKE, Danai (THA) 62 60. Ouch .

So I guess RB and JE ran into a hot doubles team or one that had played together before.

On a secondary note Louis Vosloo is now in the semifinals so RB didn't lose to a guy who lost in the next round but then again, he lost whereas we would all like him to win a few matches now and then and pick up some valuable points.

Last year I think it was after a training stint in Europe Rohan's game took that step from top 500-600 to top 300-400. Confidence from the Asian championships didn't hurt either. Hopefully this new stint can help him take the step from 300-400 to the 100-200 level by next year.

[nkoth]

Rohan starts his English grass campaign today at the Surbiton Challenger!

[Q1] (3) Rohan Bopanna (IND) vs Naim Lalji (GBR)

-neil

[nkoth]

Rohan's match was cancelled today due to rain I believe -- he'll now play his 1st round qualie as the 2nd match of the day on court 4 at Surbiton. The winner then has the unenviable task of playing the 2nd round qualie as the 4th match of the day on court 4...

-neil

[Dhruv]

Ok today at the Surbiton Trophy ($50K Challenger event ) Court 4 proved to be quite good for Rohan Bopanna and he won both his matches and is now just one win away from the main draw.

Men's Singles R1 (Q)
BOPANNA, Rohan (IND) d. LALJI, Naim (GBR) 63 64

and then later in the day

Men's Singles R2 (Q)
BOPANNA, Rohan (IND) d. DERER, Andrew (AUS) 63 75

He will now play (I believe) Ian Flanagan(GBR) for a place in the main draw. There are quite a few highly ranked players in the main draw esp for a $50K.

[nkoth]

FANTASTIC performance by Rohan, especially as he was playing almost back to back matches.

He is going to play Ian Flanagan (GBR) next in the qualifying round. Flanagan, ranked 919 in the world, has made two quarterfinals this year in English futures events...

-neil