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Yes, a very dominating win against in-form player.

PKBasu wrote: ↑Wed Sep 22, 2021 1:33 pm Next up for Ramkumar is 29 year old Mats Moraing (GER, 175; CH 148). I think Ramkumar should certainly have the edge in that R2 match, which will probably be tomorrow.

Good to see Ramkumar easily live up to my prediction. On indoor courts, he will have the edge against Liam Broady too -- but just needs to forget about his 2 losses to this player (particularly the one a fortnight ago).

RamK loses once again to Broady. 6-7, 2-6. Just when I think he is in great form to win his first career challenger, he comes up short yet again!

Yes, disappointing stuff after a couple of big wins over really good players. Broady just seems to have his measure

It was anybody's match upto the TB in the first set until Ram in the TB tried a risky S&V on his 2nd serve and got broken, the Briton took full advantage by not only taking that opening set, but went on to dominate Ram in the 2nd set by some brilliant returning to take the set and the match.

Comming 3 weeks will be once again hectic for him as not only change in surface but also crisscrossing of continents as next week clay in Murcia(Spain),then off to IW qualies and again back to Spain for Alicante Challenger

Rajiv, since you know Ramkumar, please talk to him about his crazy scheduling. Why the hell does he have to play a week on clay (especially at this time of the year)? He should have taken this week off, and played at the IW qualifiers next.

Yes , not only change of surface , most importantly has been playing singles / doubles non stop since Pre-Wimbledon challengers,and a rest was surely called for, since after IW there are 4 weeks of successive challengers in Europe which he is unlikely to miss, and in Murcia not sure about Single's , but have a feeling will be occupied with Bala till late in the week. and than quickly has rush to the States.
We do discuss scheduling , but in the end it is he (Ram) who makes the final call.

He lost after winning the first set.

At Murcia Challenger 80, Spain (Clay)

[R1] Ramkumar Ramanathan (IND,190) l. Milkan Zekic (SRB,321) 64 46 36

Unnecessary foray to clay just for a week. If he did not want to take this week off at least he should have tried the Orleans challenger which is on indoor hard courts. Tough field where he would have been one of the last entries but still it would have been on the same surface where he played last week.

After Alicante Challenger , Ram has rightly avoided the only Clay court challenger available in Europe in Croatia , and instead given entries for the 2 biggies at Moscow & Antwerp ,where of course there is no guarantee he can make the cut for the qualies , but things can drastically change at the last minute if one is on the site and there are vacant spots to be filled up , and being Indoors can well fancy his chances if he were to get in , never the less its a good decision as even if he misses those biggies he would get a well-earned rest to later have a crack at remaining last 3 weeks of challenger season which is spread over France , Germany , Italy and all of those are on Indoor Hard , and hopefully with a chance to end the year as Indian # 1.

They have reached the doubles SF.

At Murcia Challenger 80, Spain (Clay)

[R1] (1) Ramkumar Ramanathan (IND) / N. Sriram Balaji (IND) bye

[QF] (1) Ramkumar Ramanathan (IND) / N. Sriram Balaji (IND) d. Davide Gallopini (ITA) / Francesco Passaro (ESP) 76(5) 63

Next,

[SF] (1) Ramkumar Ramanathan (IND) / N. Sriram Balaji (IND) vs. (4) Alberto Barroso Campos (ESP) / Roberto Carballes Baena (ESP)

Close match but no cigar...

[SF] (1) Ramkumar Ramanathan (IND) / N. Sriram Balaji (IND) l. (4) Alberto Barroso Campos (ESP) / Roberto Carballes Baena (ESP), 57 67(6)

OK, that gives Ramkumar a bit more time to get to Indian Wells and acclimate before his Q1 match...

At the IW qualies R1 , Ram faced the last player a 300 ranked something to get into the qualies but still couldn't capitalise on this easy draw and went down 46 63 46 .
Would have been better to follow Sumit and Praj , who would have easily made the qualies draw but rightly avoided the long trek from Europe to California.

Wonderful story on Ramkumar Ramanathan -

At the Ismaning Challenger R1 qualies  Ram in a bad 46 ,67 loss to a futures player.
Infact Ram could have made it into the MD, but since he had entered St Petersburg, and only when he  realized he couldn't make the 250 qualies made a last minute entry to this Challenger.
Actually until the Biel Challenger, Ram was playing good Tennis, but some strange choices of surfaces , changing continents every week just simply disturbed his playing rhythm which has resulted in this 5th consecutive R1 loss after the Biel Challenger.