Ramkumar Ramanathan thread

[sameerph]

^^^ I am not watching it. Are you? I just know what he usually does, so I am guessing that is why he lost three first serve points in the 12th game all of a sudden.

Yes, you can watch here-

https://en9.sportplus.live/tennis/110681/3901865/

[jayakris]

^^ Thank you. Illegal site, right? We should remove the link later

In the 6th game of the 2nd set, RamK got impatient and hit the net on a 21 shot rally where he was hitting the ball well... He had to save 2 BPs, hit another ace, and get lucky with his net game (I am sorry,it is always hit or miss, and I am never too impressed even if he comes up with some great shots every now and then)... Good job holding serve for 57 42... Another good service game makes it 5-3... Ymer had a DF, was down 0-30 and faced a deuce but held... At 5-4, RamK did everything he could to lose points (after terrific serves!). Ran blindly behind a great serve that Ymer struggled to return, and dropped it across for him to hit a winner, etc, like at the first 40-15 set point. Did that again at the second set point, but Ymer made an unforced error and hit the net. It is frustrating to see RamK play even when he is winning, sometimes... But great job tying it up even while frustrating me .... 57 64 00... Go RamK!

Okay, there was a really impressive point he won at the net in his first service game of the third that I should give kudos for. An improvised underhand shot and a great reflex volley that followed. He held at love for 1-1 in the third. Then 2 more points from 30-40 on Ymer's serve in the next game at the net. Now his net-game is truly cooking. I mean, superb. And a wonderful lob to the back left corner got him a BP... Lo and behold, he hits a topspin passing shot from the baseline to win the BP too. Yay, RamK!! 2-1 up a break and serving. He holds serve with his 9th ace, and it is 3-1.... Now Ymer is beginning to get frustrated (not me! ) ... He hits out some shots blindly too... Suddenly it is 0-40 and RR breaks him again. 4-1 up and serving. Go RR... Go... Ace #11, 12 and 13 by RamK in the next game... Hmmm... And he is up 5-1.... A great return winner from ramK, 0-15... An 11 shot rally where he played every kind of strokes, 0-30, an ace by Ymer and a wild FH shot go too long from Ymer... 15-40 Match pt. A forehand too long, MP#2... An IOFH a bit wide, deuce. really good chip return by RamK, and Ymer hits too long... MP #3... And my stream dies, but RR won the point Great!!

[Q2] (6) Ramkumar Ramanathan (IND,299) d. (2) Elias Ymer (SWE,124), 57 64 61

I mean, RamK went berserk in the third set and Ymer didn't know what hit him. RR was making shots of all kinds and hardly missing much. Serves that you could hardly touch either. RR had 13 aces and NO double faults, while Ymer had 8 aces and 5 DFs. RR won by 91 pts to Ymer's 77.

[sameerph]

He played quite superbly in third set, I think. Maybe from middle of second set and many times his unconventional play of slicing and serve and volley frustrated Ymer. But, that is an excellent win.

[Rajiv]

Told him about his opponents loss to a 417 ranked player last week in Seoul and his victory over him in Izmir, and he did remember this well...as seen from the result

[jayakris]

Yes, sameer. He played superbly in the end. The unconventional mixing up of shots really frustrated Ymer. Excellent win indeed.

And yes Rajiv, you must have reminded him of the lob winner from back then too, because RR played one that got him ahead in the third set at first. That was really tremendous, at a point in a short rally when RR was all at sea and I thought he was sure to lose the point. Instead he broke Ymer.

[jayakris]

At Tokyo ATP 500 (Hard)

[R1] (Q) Ramkumar Ramanathan (IND,299) vs (Q) Rio Noguchi (JPN,290)

[sameerph]

20 points and $15K+ in singles and $4+K in singles close to $20 K guranteed. Makes the trek to Tokyo from Europe totally worthwhile.

And he gets as easy a draw as one can get in first round of ATP 500 against a fellow qualifier from Japan who is currently ranked higher than RamK though.

[vparam]

Assuming if RamK takes advantage of a very winnable first round match, he would then be in the running for the Australian Open qualies?

[Rajiv]

Until the end of the year has to protect 109, out of which he has protected 20 points so far.
# 268 in the live rankings and just to maintain and remain at #268 he needs to accumulate 89 points.

Assuming the cutoff is 240 which is approx 210 points , Ram would need a total of 115 points to reach to 240.

All this is a rough guesstimate and can change, depending on how the other players perform , but ideally a total of 125 to 135 points from now onwards would keep him in the hunt and this figure of 125 to 135 is based on assumption that the cut off will be around 240

125/135 points till end of the year is quite a difficult task, but you never know... like Tokyo little did I expect him reaching at this stage and initially thought Traveling to Japan from France was a futile effort, so 45 more points if he reaches R2 in Tokyoand some deep runs in the remaining Challengers in coming weeks can turn the tide.
And like Tokyo 500, would also attempt a 500 either at Vienna or Basle.

[jayakris]

It is very difficult for him to make the AO qualies unless he goes and reaches the challenger final and a couple of semis or something. Winning a round at Japan would make it a bit easier. Anything is possible with RamK though. Never know how he would play any given match, and he is capable of beating even top-50 players on a good day when his first serve is falling in and he makes right shot selection decisions. He could keep losing to top-300 players for a few matches in a row too.

[arjun2761]

He absolutely needs to win R-1 here to collect 65 points which will get him started. Likely, Shapo in the second round, so going deeper may be tough.

Thereafter, he needs a couple of deep runs in the challengers such as a final or title (or 3 SFs) to get there. Difficult but conceivable if he has one of his good runs which he does have from time to time.

[sameerph]

RamK loses the first set 4-6 with 1 break.

[sameerph]

But he wins the second set 6-3 with 1 break.

[sameerph]

Damn, in third set RamK came back from 3-5 down and broke Noguchi as he served for the match at 5-3 and took it to tie break. But, in the tie break Noguchi simply ran away. Did not watch to see what went wrong with RamK in third set tie break but rare to see a big server like RamK lose a tie break like that.

At Tokyo ATP 500 (Hard)

[R1] (Q) Ramkumar Ramanathan (IND,299) l. (Q) Rio Noguchi (JPN,290) 46 63 67(1)

[jayakris]

It was too late at night for me, so didn't see the match. Such shame, as he lost a big chance there for some good money and points in a tiebreaker. Must have ran up to the net every time in the tiebreaker and the hit-or-miss turned into misses today