ITF Team Juniors (u16 Davis/Fed Cup, u14 World Jun. Tennis)

[gbelday]

So, Pakistan has finally found a couple of good 20 year olds?

Well... You may be on to something there. Maybe not 20 year olds, but...



From this article - World Junior Tennis: Pakistan makes history

You are welcome to make your own conclusions! Both of them are taller than their coach. They don't look like they are quite 20 yet though ...

That’s funny Jay but we have our share of 20 year olds playing the juniors. Need to clean up our house first honestly.

[jayakris]

That’s funny Jay but we have our share of 20 year olds playing the juniors. Need to clean up our house first honestly.

I thought this problem had started going away? Still there? If any of our players near the top of the list are known in the junior tennis circles as surely over-age, do let me and Sameer know. I think we can find ways to slowly "curb our enthusiasm" in the forums with some hints without openly accusing (unless that is needed).

[sameerph]

Asia Oceania girls under 16 Asia Oceania qualifying started today in Uzbekistan.

And our girls lost the first match against Chinese Taipei 1-2.

Sejal Bhutada lost to their #2 in straight sets. Than our #1 Asmi Adkar ( Vaishanavi's sister) won 64 46 21 retd.

But, we lost the doubles in straight sets. Chinese Taipei were not the seeded team in our group and we were. So, this is a loss which most likely would mean we are going to be out to at group stage itself unless we can Thailand who are higher seeds.

Again it is a selection issue. If one goes by ITF rankings, top 4 players are not in the team- Krisha Mahendran, Rishita Reddy Basireddy, Ika Raju Kanumuri and Sohini Mohanty. Asmi Adkar is only #5. And then there are tons of players who are ahead of Sejan Bhutada who is ranked in 2800's.

But, selection is made only based on AITA rankings. So, these kind of results are not a surprise when you are playing your second or third best team.

[jayakris]

Yeah, this team made no sense at all. Not much hope on them at all. Among the players you mentioned. I doubt if anybody tried to contact Krisha at all. If she was there, we would be a tough team to beat. Rishitha hasn't played much in a while at all, and Ika Raju has not lookked too good for the last 6 months or so too though. Krisha and Sohini would have been my team. Oh well...

[sameerph]

Both Krisha and Ika Raju are based in US it seems and may not be be available although I am quite sure nobody in AITA made any attempt to try to contact them. As you said Ika Raju is not winning much in last couple of months but Krisha would have made a big difference.

Sohini Mohanty has also done well in ITF juniors. She should have been there and than maybe Asmi Adkar as third player. Or even if Krisha was not available there are players such as Aishwarya Jadhav or younger ones such as Prisha Shinde or Maaya Rajeshwaran Revathi who have done well in ITF juniors.

Any of these would made a competitive team. But, AITA's so called selectors go and choose the top 3 ranked players in AITA rankings blindly.

[sameerph]

And as expected we lose 1-2 to Thailand and are out of QF reckoning. Sejal Bhatuda lost 16 26, Asmi Adkar lost with a bit more of a fight- 46 67(3). Our doubles team of Asmi Adkar and Aakruti Sonkusare won 36 63 10-7. Nothing better could have been expected from this team.

[sameerph]

Our girls under 14 team beat Mongolia and then beat Vietnam and Indonesia in classification match but lost to New Zealand and finish 11th among 16 teams. So, 11th in under 16 boys, 14th in under 14 boys and 5th in under 14 girls for us so far. It was quite clear that we did not have our best players in that age group in first 2 teams which showed in results.

From tomorrow, final event junior davis cup for under 16 starts. Looks like Manas and his team decided not to travel back from Europe for this event although he was selected for the original team. So, our team now is Krish Tyagi, Rethin Pranav and Arjun Pandit. This looks like a decent team. At least 2 of our top 3 available under 16 players as per ITF juniors rankings ( Krish and Rethin ). Hitesh Chauhan would be third choice based on ITF junior rankings but Arjun Pandit is selected based on AITA rankings.

We are in same group as Japan, Indonesia and play Iran tomorrow.

[sameerph]

Our under 16 boys team started with 3-0 wins against both Iran and Indonesia. So, we are thru to the QF. Now match against Japan tomorrow which will decide the group topper which will be critical for QF draw. Japan also has won against Iran and Indonesia as easily.

If one goes by ITF junior rankings, Krish Tyagi and Rethin Pranav are much higher ranked inside top 300 while Japanese are ranked in 800's and 1400's but maybe their boys have not played much ITF juniors because Japanese team usually is quite good at this level. Lets see.

[sameerph]

It turned out to be the way I had feared. We lost to Japan. Both Rethin and Krish lost in 3 sets against their Japanese counterparts.

Now we play Korea in QF which will be quite tough.

[sameerph]

We lost to Korea 0-2. Both Rethin and Krish lost in straight sets.

We will fight for 5-8 positions now.

[sameerph]

We did better in classification matches un junior davis cup. Beat Australia 2-1 and beat Hongkong 2-0 to finish 5th.

Overall not bad. Rethin Pranav and Krish Tyagi are talented players. We lost to Japan and Korea here and they finished top 2 here. So, we may have been unlucky with the draw to play both of them. Kazakhstan and Thailand finished third and fourth. If we had drawn probably there would have been a chance to finish in top 4 and qualify for world group.

[jayakris]

I can take it if we finish in the Asian top-6 or top-8. Finishing below 10 with badly selected teams is what rankles me. Good job by Rethin and Kriish, who are both good players!

[sameerph]

Junior Age group Asian qualifying events started this week with under 14 girls tournament in Kutching, Malaysia.

And as is usual these days our girls team could not get into even top 8. Lost the first 2 matches against Austalia and Thailand in the group 0-3 and 1-2 respectively and were out of contention. Later on we did beat Hongkong in last group match and than Iran and Nepal in classification matches. We will play New Zealnd for 9th-10th place play off.

Australia and Thailand who beat us were not really best teams out there. Australia lost in SF against Korea while Thailand will play for 5th-6th place against China.

[sameerph]

Our under 14 girls finished 9th week after beating NZ. We lost to Australia who finished 3rd and Thailand who finished 6th. So, mostly a fair position for us.

Our boys under 14 team are doing much better this week. They have reached the SF. Beat China in group stage, lost to Japan to finish second in group B but beat Group C topper Australia today.

Good show by Tavish Pahwa and Hruthik Katakam.

Either 4 or 3 teams make it to world group of 16 every year depending upon how that continent's teams performed last year's world group competitions. I checked for last year and out 4 Asian teams which were there in last 16- Hongkong and Pakistan fought for last spot and Pakistan finished 16th. So, mostly Asia would have lost the 4th spot.

So, our team does not seem to have qualified yet for world group. Will have to win 1 more match.

Up against Korea in SF, win that or if we lost that win against loser of other SF between Japan and Thailand.

[Atithee]

I’m sorry; under-14 doesn’t say much. Does anyone have data on Indian under-14 players’ progress to Men’s? What about the rest of the world? How many of current top-100 (or past) play these tournaments? Just a few examples will help. This may not even be a very old competition.