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Mukund plays top-seeded Aljaz Bedene in R3 at 7:30pm tonight. Bedene won a tight 3-setter over Ilya Marchenko yesterday.

Bala and Vishnu scored a comfortable upset win over the 3rd seed pairing of Huesler and Podlipnik-Castillo ... Next, they r facing the top-seed Jebavy and Middelkoop.

At $46K+H Meerbusch Challenger 2019, Germany

[QF] N. Sriram Balaji (IND)/ Vishnu Vardhan (IND) bt (3) Marc-Andrea Huesler (SUI)/ Hans Podlipnik-Castillo (CHI) 63 62

[SF] N. Sriram Balaji (IND)/ Vishnu Vardhan (IND) vs (1) Roman Jebavy (CZE)/ Matwe Middelkoop (NED)

Tame loss for Mukund against the top-seeded local man:

[R3] 16-Sasikumar Mukund (IND, 290) l. 1-Aljaz Bedene (SLO, 90) 26 26


Bedene, who briefly became a Brit (and is still a British citizen, I think, despite changing his official affiliation back to his native Slovenia when the ITF said he couldn't play Davis Cup for Britain as he had already represented Slovenia) was ranked as high as 43 in 2018 (and seemed headed higher). He lost in the ATP Chennai final in 2015 to Wawrinka. But he struggled to a 3-set win over Ilya Marchenko in the previous round. Mukund is not yet at the level where he can play competitively against a top-100 player.

Bala and Vishnu r in the final ... They scored an impressive win over the ATP tour pairing of Middelkoop and Jebavy in straight sets.

At $46K+H Meerbusch Challenger 2019, Germany

[SF] N. Sriram Balaji (IND)/ Vishnu Vardhan (IND) bt (1) Roman Jebavy (CZE)/ Matwe Middelkoop (NED) 76(2) 63

Bala and Vishnu lost a close final against Mergea and Begemann ... After winning the second set in the tie-break our pair failed to keep momentum in the match tie-break.

At $46K+H Meerbusch Challenger 2019, Germany

Doubles Final
N. Sriram Balaji (IND)/ Vishnu Vardhan (IND) l Andre Begemann (GER)/ Florin Mergea (ROU) 67(1) 76(4) 3-10

As mentioned in his thread, Sumit plays a big Genova challenger and facing a local wild-card teenager.
In the doubles, Purav is playing with Rameez and they r facing Balazs and Romboli in the first round.

At €137.5K+H Genova Challenger 2019, Italy

[R1] Sumit Nagal (IND,190) vs (WC) Giulio Zeppieri (ITA,470)

Doubles
[R1] Rameez Junaid (AUS)/ Purav Raja (IND) vs Attila Balazs (HUN)/ Fernando Romboli (BRA)

Sumit faced a tough loss after his terrific US Open performance ... He lost in a straight-sets against an Italian junior player, Zeppieri.

At €137.5K+H Genova Challenger 2019, Italy

[R1] Sumit Nagal (IND,190) l (WC) Giulio Zeppieri (ITA,470) 16 57

That’s a bad loss. Can’t understand that and the scoreline is bothersome.

I hope Nagal is not one of those players who gets fired up for the big stage against big players in big tournaments but can't get fired up to beat players he should be beating in smaller tournaments. I'm sure he knows intellectually that he needs to be able to do the latter consistently in order to get more chances to do the former. But motivation, confidence, drive and desire are intangibles that can be difficult to summon up at will. Then again, may be it was simply a let down after the high of last week. The mind is a difficult thing to manage. All part of the challenges of being a professional in the lonely sport of tennis.

Purav and Rameez lost in the two tie-breaks against Balazs and Romboli in the first round.

At €137.5K+H Genova Challenger 2019, Italy

[R1] Rameez Junaid (AUS)/ Purav Raja (IND) l Attila Balazs (HUN)/ Fernando Romboli (BRA) 67(2) 67(3)

At the Banja Luka Challenger:

[R2] Sumit Nagal (IND, 174) d. Ivan Nedelko (RUS, 334) 63 76(3)

Comfortable win over a Challenger journeyman. It was 3-all in the second set tiebreaker, then Sumit raced off with the final 4 points.

A win for Ramkumar too in the Istanbul Challenger R2, where he crushed the 32 year old Marsel Ilhan (ranked 77 four years ago, but now 672) in straight sets, 62 62.

[R3] 6-Sumit Nagal (IND, 174) d. WC-Matija Pecotic (CRO, 704) 61 61

Pecotic beat the Australian 12th seed in the previous round, but got creamed by the Indian 6th seed.

[R3] 6-Sumit Nagal (IND, 174) d. WC-Matija Pecotic (CRO, 704) 61 61

Pecotic beat the Australian 12th seed in the previous round, but got creamed by the Indian 6th seed.
Pecotic has a career high ranking of 206 (from four years ago), so his earlier wins are explicable. But he is 30, and has career earnings of $77K. Tennis is a brutal career unless you make the top-200 early, and preferably the top-100 before long.

So it brings up tomorrow,
[QF] (6) Sumit Nagal (IND,174) vs (4) Federico Coria (ARG,155)

Coria is at about a career high at age 27. After being in the top250-450 range for about 5-6 years, he moved up in the last few months to the 150-175 range. Should be an even match.