Ramkumar Ramanathan thread

[Sanjay]

Told you guys, he is done.

Lost 1-6, 4-6 to someone ranked outside 1000. Even Manas can beat RR now.
Instead of focusing on his tennis and improving, he wasted mental energy fighting with opponents and umps.

[Rajiv]

At the Lexington R1 qualies another straight sets loss by Ram, this time to a 950 ranked unknown player.

Bad form is unavoidable and a player has no control over it, but the choice of tournament's is surely in his hands and when his playing form has hit the rock bottom should work and plan the recovery, but he has stuck only to playing the ATP's/ Challengers for past 4 months and rather should have instead planned weaker futures taking place in every continent if he is serious to resurrect his game.
Last week gave his entry for Atlanta ATP, for which he had no chance of getting in, and as a result missed that whole period doing nothing , when a Futures play would have given atleast a chance and better hope to earn that elusive One Singles Point which he has been staring at for the past 5 or 6 months.

[sameerph]

This was his 10th straight first round loss or rather first match loss as most them are in qualies. The streak keeps getting longer.

He plays doubles with Purav here at Lexington Challenger.

[Rajiv]

And a straight sets R1 loss with Purav , Dbls also now looks in a disarray, ranking going south ,with no fixed partner, adhoc planning, playing with random players week after week ,depending mostly on OS entries.

[vparam]

Poor Ram lost once again. This time in the qualifiers in Cary, NC to a kid that just finished his college career and ranked 931. Ram won the 1st set 7-5 and then got blown out 1 and 2 in the final 2 sets. Many of us want him to either drop to the futures level for singles or just focus on doubles. His singles ranking eventually won’t even get him in the challengers qualifying draw. Also, playing with well past his prime Purav Raja isn’t much better. Tough situation all around for Ram.

[Atithee]

How has it come to this for Ram? I don’t recall any tennis player going through this kind of slump ever.

[jayakris]

^^ Me neither. This is one of the worst slumps I have seen. One doesn't lose all one's abilities overnight like this.

[arjun2761]

Players fall of the cliff in many sports. Generally, caused by age and/or injury. RamK is only 28, so likely not solely due to the age although he does have a lot of miles on his frequent flyer card.

Hopefully, he can pull out of it at some point soon.

[Atithee]

Arjun, we are talking about tennis here. I’ve been following the sport very closely for over 45 years now. I just can’t find any other player who fell this much this fast. And, Ram actually has a good serve. It’s just puzzling. He has to have some major personal life-changing non-tennis event is all I can think of right now. Could be losing a long-time girlfriend, a serious illness like cancer or something in the family, or some personal medical issue that has no known cure etc. Whatever it is, I hope it’s temporary and he can regroup and climb to the higher rungs again.

[arjun2761]

^^^^^Age and injury do hit suddenly in tennis as well.

Some examples, Rafa Nadal is now 137 (after being top 10 last year). Kyrgios and Monfils have had a similar fall. These are clearly injury related although Nadal and Monfils are also quite old.

Examples closer to RamK's age include those like Lucas Pouille who is now 359 (after being top 10) and he is 29. 31 year old Filip Krajinovic is now 262 after being top 30. 30 year old Jiri Vesely is now 431 (after being 35). 27 year old Escobedo is now 367 after being 67.

It's possible for RamK to have hit an age/injury wall without anything as drastic like you are hypothesizing.

[ornatebrute]

All those fell through rankings due to injuries and lack of active playing. Ramkumar (with/without injury) has fallen so low despite playing regularly throughout the injury. Also very rare for somebody to just have so many losing streaks. Kiki, Sloane etc come to mind but they somehow recovered. RamK isn't showing any signs of that yet.

[Rajiv]

And these strings of losses are perplexing as last year created an ignominious record of 11 match losing streak and this week has equalled it and to do it twice a year in succession is an unwanted record no player wants , People might say , that beginning of the year his form was good , but to be honest knowing his game , the malaise had set in 18 months ago when the first record was being created and had to be addressed it then. Every player is struck by bad form ,it is not a new phenomenon , and to rectify it one should go back to the drawing boards and work out in the abundant Futures on offer week after week in all the continents , but here he is sticking to only high standards Challengers and ATP’s and further exasperating his results instead of playing lower level Futures.
Like he played in the Newport ATP and saw the match , with Zero practice on Grass , was quite even with Alex Bolt in S1 and after getting broken even broke back for a possible TB which however did not happen, but the main point here is that he had the inherent tools to do well on Grass despite no practice and hence was insisting him to 2 weeks of Futures in Nottingham and Roehampton during Newport for which he even entered those Futures and considering the way he played in Newport on Grass with Zero practice , would have surely notched few wins in the 2 weeks on Grass against lower ranked player or inexperienced grass court players in the UK and 2 weeks spent by practice & matches would have been productive which he showed his grass ability in Newport, but withdrew from them and entered Newport.

[sameerph]

And these strings of losses are perplexing as last year created an ignominious record of 11 match losing streak and this week has equalled it and to do it twice a year in succession is an unwanted record no player wants , People might say , that beginning of the year his form was good , but to be honest knowing his game , the malaise had set in 18 months ago when the first record was being created and had to be addressed it then.

At least those 11 losses last year were in challenger main draws against players ranked between 100 to 250 mainly ( except an odd match) and he did win few sets in that streak. This time he is losing to players ranked below 900 and all and won only 1 set in his latest match. So, it clearly a lot worse this time.

But, I agree with others that I have not seen a player who had ability to win ATP main draw or at least qualifying matches and had done so even last year or early this year, lose his ability so much that he is getting dumped in straight sets by players ranked below 900. This is not normal.

[jayakris]

I agree too. I have not noticed a slump like RamK's in tennis. Even more an indication that a lot of it is probably caused by his own mind and his poor and immature decision making (both on court and in tour scheduling).

[Omkara]

Agassi??