Domestic Junior Circ./ Upcoming u15 players

Post by **jayakris** » Thu Aug 18, 2005 10:37 pm

I will start this thread basically for discussion on players who are lesser known sub-juniors who have not hit the ITF junior circuit yet (The domestic ITF junior international events always have tournament threads, and foreign ITF results of our kids are in a separate thread in the player forum already)

You can post general comments on promising players not older than about 16 or so (meaning, they are not being discussed in the ITF juniors threads), and some results from the domestic junior events like AITA u12/u14/u16/u18 talent series, super series, championship series, national series events - some of which are Nike and Nutrine sponsored events - can all be discussed here. These are events with patchy and occasional newspaper reports; we normally cannot find full draws and results to sustain event threads for those.

Jay

Post by **jayakris** » Thu Aug 18, 2005 11:12 pm

Actually I thought of starting a thread like this as I wanted to give an impressive result this week from a player whom I had briefly mentioned last July when she was 12 (and we had a small discussion on her in this thread - viewtopic.php?t=211529) ..

Anyway, 13 year old Ashwarya Shrivastava won the u18 Championship series this today at Chennai, beating the u18 Indian #14 Bhavani who is almost 16 .. Ashwarya is #5 in the u14 and Bhavani is #5 in the u16 .. Pretty good win for the Maharashtra girl being coached by Nandan Bal.

Here is the Hindu article with a picture of her and Allan Gomes, the boys winner - http://www.hindu.com/2005/08/19/stories ... 692000.htm

From the picture, she lookes tall enough for her age. Anyway, it is impressive for a 13 year old to win a u18 event and so I will continue to keep an eye on this Pune girl.

Here is the previous round scores - http://www.hindu.com/2005/08/18/stories ... 212000.htm
http://www.hindu.com/2005/08/17/stories ... 711800.htm

Alan Gomes is a 16 year old, also from Pune (PYC Club) .. I believe he was the 4th seed (he is #27 in the AITA u18 ranks) behind those like #7 Gursher Singh, #12 Tariq Jacob, and #22 Navneetha Kannan who were at this event.

This is the 7th championship series u18 event this year. So, not all top juniors enter these events. How many rounds you win or whether you win a title is not as important as whom you beat in these evnts, in my view.

Both 14 yr old Nandita Krishnan and 16 yr old Gayatri Krishnan were in the same event. Ashwarya beat Gayatri in the semifinal 46 64 62. So, some pretty good work by Ashwarya.

OK, now on the one that caught my eye on the boys side. The finalist was Venkat Iyer, 14 year old listed under Delhi .. Guess who that is? --- I am sure he is Tara Iyer's younger brother who must be in India on a visit from the US. He seems to have played Gomes quite closely at least for a set .. Venkat was in a final last week at a u14 super series event also at Chennai where he was a wildcard entry and lost a 3-setter to TN's Sudanwa Sitaram, the current Indian u14 #2 - so Venkat is right up there among the cream of the u14. Good to see that Venkat will be listed in the AITA rankings now.

Jay

Post by **jayakris** » Mon Aug 22, 2005 8:46 pm

The Adidas Nationals (u14/u18) is underway in Chennai. This is the first nationals of the year.

And our boy Venkat Iyer has started promptly according to the script, upsetting the top seed Mansigh Athare (the India u14 #1) in the u14s .. Aswarya has qualified into the u18 draw too. Here is the Hindu article on the first round scores -

Venkat Iyer topples Mansingh

Jay

Post by **jayakris** » Tue Aug 23, 2005 8:30 pm

Adidas Nationals Tuesday results -

http://www.hindu.com/2005/08/24/stories ... 071800.htm

Vinkat and Yuki stay on track for the nice QF clash .. Ashwarya Shrivastava is still in both the u14 and u18 draws.

Jay

Post by **jayakris** » Thu Aug 25, 2005 2:20 am

OK, things are getting to the QF stage at the clay court nationals .. Looks like The Hindu has not been reporting scores in the draw order .. Anyway, Venkat, Yuki, Ashwarya etc are still there .. Ashwarya is in the QF of the 18s!

http://www.hindu.com/2005/08/25/stories ... 041800.htm

Jay

Sandeep · Post by **Sandeep** » Thu Aug 25, 2005 9:22 pm

Yuki had an easy time against Venkat Iyer. He beat him 6-0, 6-4.

And Aishwarya also lost in U-18 event. Asha Nandakumar bt Aishwarya 6-0, 6-0

. But she is very much there in the U-14 event.

http://www.hindu.com/2005/08/26/stories ... 081900.htm

Post by **jayakris** » Fri Aug 26, 2005 1:29 am

Yeah, Yuki Bhambri shows what he is! .. No big surprise though .. We all know that he is the real thing. It would have been a humongous upset for Venkat to get past Yuki.

Asha is actually 18 years old, and I expected it to be tough for the 14 year old to match up against 18 year old, physically itself. I am still quite up on Aishwarya - as I was about GK Shwetha and VPoojashree a year or two back, but they have not broken through. I keep looking for some spark on the girls' side.

Jay

Sandeep · Post by **Sandeep** » Fri Aug 26, 2005 8:16 pm

So it is Yuki Bhambri (DEL) Vs Menta Gopinath (???) in U-14 boys finals (Is he from AP ?)

Prerna Bhambri (DEL) Vs Ashvarya Srivastav (MAH) in U-14 girls finals

Who is this Prerna Bhambri? Is she sister of Ankita Bhambri? This one should be an interesting finals.

Siddarth Alapatti (AP) Vs Myneni Saketh Sai (AP) (All AP affair

)in U-18 boys finals

Madura Ranganathan (TN) Vs Swetha (Kar) in U-18 girls finals.

PS : By the way is her name Aishwarya or Ashwarya? (Jay, are you confused too

)

Post by **jayakris** » Fri Aug 26, 2005 10:19 pm

I am not confused... I am going with how often I see either name written. Earlier in the week I saw Ashwarya in a few news reports (and I had seen it earlier too). Now it seems to have gone back to Aishwarya in the reports. If only AITA would put an end to it and get a correct name. I hate it. It is crazy.

Then I saw the official draw from Chennai - and it said Aishwarya Sreevatsan .. I give up. Why are Indian people this careless about these kinds of things? ..

Jay

Post by **jayakris** » Fri Aug 26, 2005 10:22 pm

Menta Gopinath is from AP. But thanks to what a bunch of people have done in the past, I have no choice but not to take him seriously. Age cheating is so crazy in AP. How can it be so much more common among people from one state in India? .. It happens in other places too, but AP is in another league altogether.

Jay

Nate · Post by **Nate** » Fri Aug 26, 2005 10:44 pm

Sounds like a breakthough of sorts is on the horizon for the name Bhambri. With so many of the quality players coming up donning that name.

Sandeep · Post by **Sandeep** » Fri Aug 26, 2005 10:45 pm

Now it seems to have gone back to Aishwarya in the reports.

Actually Deccan chronicle mentioned it as Ashwarya only. But Hindu put it as Aishwarya. Don't know what exactly her name is!

Age cheating is so crazy in AP. How can it be so much more common among people from one state in India? .. It happens in other places too, but AP is in another league altogether.

Hmm, I never knew that it was so bad that you completely left taking AP players seriously.

I first of all don't understand the point in cheating with regards to age. How is it going to benefit a player apart from winning couple of sub junior and junior titles? What are you going to do once you cross 18?

Ok, in cricket i can understand that life becomes easy by showing yourself younger. I have no idea how is it going to benefit in sports like tennis, badminton. table tennis etc!

Sandeep · Post by **Sandeep** » Fri Aug 26, 2005 10:51 pm

The 6'4" 18-year-old Saketh served and stroked well to overcome Mohammed Fariz of Tamil Nadu 6-3, 7-5 to enter the boys' under-18 final of the Adidas-Madras Cricket Club AITA National junior tennis championship at the club courts here on Friday.

He is 6'4"

.

Post by **jayakris** » Sat Aug 27, 2005 3:16 am

Hmm, I never knew that it was so bad that you completely left taking AP players seriously.

Yes I have. It is not even funny how many people I have heard this from. One of the junior players told me about an AP player's mom asking his mom about his age. When she replied, the AP mom asks casually, "yeah, and the actual age?" .. She said it was the same, and this lady is absolutely surprised - "really? .. how did you manage to play with the correct age?" .. It is like that is such an unheard of thing to do in AP. I guess if everyone is cheating around you, you have no choice but to cheat? .. I don't know.

That doesn't mean it is only in AP that this happens. Heard the story of a player from the North (name withheld), from a small town not known for any sort of tennis. 2 or 3 years off in age, and so highly ranked nationally. He does produce a birth certificate for AITA, but of course it is from the hospital run by his dad. And more interestingly, the hospital did not even exist at the time he is supposed to have born there. I also remember at least two highly ranked juniors from Kolkata a few years back who were clearly over age.

Poor Rupesh has his name openly discussed by everybody as an age-cheat and I have heard from some sources that he had nothing to do with it really. Because he has continued to be good, he gets discussed - and so many others get away with it.

But in general, I can make some good guesses from occasional newspaper photographs and by keeping track of how the results and rankings go in the 14s, 16s, 18s to detect possible age cheating.

The only case I remember where I suspected possible age cheating, and had to reverse my opinion, was J Vishnu Vardhan from AP. He actually started doing better this year in the men's circuit than he was doing earlier - and that is just not possible if he was surviving with age-cheating earlier. He has got to be a talented kid. He has shown better results in the pros than he did in the 18s and 16s (he is 18 now, and he is #10 in the AITA men's rankings already!).

It is really a sad situation. AITA needs to take some very strong steps, though I don't know what exactly would work. Birth certificate themselves may not be the answer. Bhushan or somebody could comment on what medical test options there are and how practical something like that is, to catch age-cheats.

Jay

Sandeep · Post by **Sandeep** » Sat Aug 27, 2005 3:37 am

I know age cheating is very common in AP, but I thought it was the same all over India. Never knew AP was so outstanding. Actually not just in sports AP has been doing these kind of crazy things in many fields. If I am correct, IIt paper was leaked just once and it was done by someone from AP right? May something wrong with the thinking of people!

The only case I remember where I suspected possible age cheating, and had to reverse my opinion, was J Vishnu Vardhan from AP.

Thought it has nothing to do with topic, just for information, I think Vishnuvardhans mother tongue is tamil. I don't know though when he moved to Hyderabad, or whether he is born there and all.

Yes I have. It is not even funny how many people I have heard this from.

But some how Sania Mirza caught your attention .. eh?