Prarthana Thombare thread

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sameerph
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Prarthana Thombare thread

Post by sameerph »

Congratulations to 19 year old Prarthana Thombare who won her first ITF title when she won $15K title at CCI, Mumbai yesterday.

These are her results for the week -

[R1] (1) Prarthana G. Thombare (IND) d. Sai Samhitha Chamarthi (IND) 60 46 61
[R2] (1) Prarthana G. Thombare (IND) d Smriti Joon (IND) 6-2 6-3
[QF] (1) Prarthana G. Thombare (IND) d. (6) Natasha Palha (IND) 63 63
[SF] (1) Prarthana G. Thombare (IND) d. (7) Anamika Bhargava (USA) 67(8) 64 61
[F] (1) Prarthana G. Thombare (IND) d. Ching-Wen Hsu (TPE) 63 67(10) 64

With this title & 20 points from it , Prarthana will move up 50 spots to go to around 375 in the WTA rankings & is quite comfortably India no.2 behind Ankita Raina.
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Re: Prarthana Thombare thread

Post by sameerph »

Prarthana hails from small town of Barshi near Solapur in Maharashtra which makes her success even more admirable.

She had limited success in ITF juniors with best ranking of 156 . In pros, she started making her mark late in 2012, reaching SF in a couple of futures. Also reached couple more SF's this year. It is in last 2 months that she has really been playing at a higher level. She reached her first ITF final in September in Egypt before losing a close one to a top 350 player & made another SF there the week after. After that she made back to back QF's at 2 25K challengers in Nigeria on the way getting her first top 200 win.

This success overseas seems to have increased her confidence as she confidently made her way thru to win the $15K title this week in Mumbai.

Off next week to AO wild card play off & after a weeks break, back to back $25K challengers in Pune & Mumbai.

It is interesting that these girls - our top 2 , Ankita & Prarthana as also some others who have been doing well off late ( Sowjanya, Bhuvana) are doing way better then they were in juniors. This shows that the general feeling ( even in this forum) that Indian tennis players do well in juniors & do worse than that in pros is a myth.
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Re: Prarthana Thombare thread

Post by suresh »

Sania did a lot better in the pros than in the juniors.
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Re: Prarthana Thombare thread

Post by PKBasu »

Not quite, Suresh (or at least not yet)! Sania had a career-high ranking of 1 in junior doubles (having won Wimbledon junior doubles, and made the FO SF the same year with Sanaa Bhambri in the latter). And she had a career-high ranking of 10 in junior singles -- both achieved when she was 16+. So she was a very good junior player, totally world-class.
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Re: Prarthana Thombare thread

Post by PKBasu »

Hearty congratulations to Prarthana for her first title -- and that too in a 15K Futures -- and for all the progress she has made this year, including overseas.
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Re: Prarthana Thombare thread

Post by suresh »

PKBasu wrote:Not quite, Suresh (or at least not yet)! Sania had a career-high ranking of 1 in junior doubles (having won Wimbledon junior doubles, and made the FO SF the same year with Sanaa Bhambri in the latter). And she had a career-high ranking of 10 in junior singles -- both achieved when she was 16+. So she was a very good junior player, totally world-class.
You are right!. I guess my memory recalls her ranking towards the end of her junior career.
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Re: Prarthana Thombare thread

Post by PKBasu »

:Offtopic: Sania stopped playing juniors after winning the Wimbledon junior doubles title at 16+. She went pretty quiet thereafter, obviously working hard on aspects of her game necessary to become a competitive pro, and from what I recall, she had a blitz of title wins at the higher-Futures level in June-July 2004 (when she was 17+), followed by 3 consecutive titles at the "Challenger" level ($25K or better tournaments) in August, followed by a runner-up finish (to Li Na) in the Asian championship (the tournament to decide the AO wildcard winner). She got that wildcard in the end because Li Na made the main draw on her own -- and the rest is history. (This is purely my memory of things, so some aspects could be slightly coloured by time and more imperfect than I recall...). Of course, at the AO (when she was 18 years and 2 months old), Sania made R3 of the women's singles, and played one breathtaking set against the one and only Serena Williams.

That is a singular story. Now many of the girls are choosing to focus more on the pro tour, and do so early. If we are looking for potential among those playing juniors, perhaps we should also note at which age the junior achievements were. It is a lot better to be going further in the pros than in the juniors, of course!!

In Prarthana's case, her top junior ranking was also achieved when she was still 16+ (10 weeks short of her 17th birthday), and by then she was already transitioning to the pro circuit. She hardly played much outside India as a junior, but has ventured overseas ambitiously as a pro. Reasonably smart strategy. When she was 17, she played the Asian closed junior championship, qualified in and made the QF in the main draw. She had the potential, but is exploiting it much better as a pro.
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Re: Prarthana Thombare thread

Post by sameerph »

Yes, Sania won as many as 10 ITF $10K titles starting from September 2012 ( when she was not even 16) till August 2014 when she was past 17 & only a couple of them were at home . Then, she started doing well at higher level events reaching final of $25K in Delhi , then winning 2 back to back $25K's in Lagos & reaching the final in a very competitive $50K in Florida when she was just past 18.

So, she was mixing her juniors & pros since she was 16 or so. But, she played in at least 7-8 junior grand slam main draws & never went past second round. So, in that sense what she achieved in pros reaching 4th round of US Open once & reaching a top 30 ranking was sigificiantly better.

Same is true of Somdev too. He was a decent junior player but his junior results do not quite indicate he would hit top 70 in pros.

In my opinion, both did much better in pros then as indicated by their junior results.
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Re: Prarthana Thombare thread

Post by suresh »

I am terribly sorry to have been one of the causes of the Prarthana Thombare thread being hijacked by another interesting discussion. Dear moderators, please move the Sania discussion to a more relevant thread.
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Re: Prarthana Thombare thread

Post by gbelday »

No need to be sorry suresh. I learn something new every time PKB comments. And am amazed by how quickly Sameer pulls up the supporting facts. Thanks for starting the discussion.
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Re: Prarthana Thombare thread

Post by sameerph »

True & I think it does not matter much if some interesting discussion goes in some different thread. After all the discussion was started when we started comparing Prarthana's pro results against her junior results. So, it not totally unrelated.
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Re: Prarthana Thombare thread

Post by Omkara »

Well every time a junior turns pro, this discussion will start. Hence its totally related. I am amazed by here performance and hope she does better next year
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Re: Prarthana Thombare thread

Post by sameerph »

Prarthana enters top 400 for the first time, ranked at 385 in this week's singles rankings. Top 3 Indian women are ranked in top 500, Ankita at 297, Prarthana at 385 & Rishika at 478. We need at least 8-10 within that range as on mens side.
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Re: Prarthana Thombare thread

Post by sameerph »

At $25K ITF Women, Hongkong

[Q1] (4) Prarthana G. THOMBARE (IND,401) d. Miki KOBAYASHI (JPN,NR) 62 36 61

[Q2] (4) Prarthana G. THOMBARE (IND,401) l. (13) Kai-Lin ZHANG (CHN,757) 26 36

Bad loss in Q2 for Prarthana. Ankita Raina will be playing in main draw here in a strong field where she is one of the last direct entrants.
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Re: Prarthana Thombare thread

Post by sameerph »

To keep this thread updated , Prarthana won her second ITF title when she won the 10K title in Chennai yesterday.

With 12 points from this title, Prarthana will move ahead of her previous career best ranking of 385 and firmly remain as India no.2.

Next up for her are couple of 25K challengers in Uzbekistan starting from Monday where she compete alongwith Ankita Raina.
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