Manas Dhamne thread

[jayakris]

Finally a win for Manas, as he returned to the junior tour. At the J200 Cap D'Ail ITF in France (clay),

[R1] (5) Manas Dhamne (IND,98) d. Egor Pleshivtsev (RUS,180), 61 61

Nice scoreline too. I thought he would win without much problems, but didn't expect a breadstick, considering his recent form. He won the R1 doubles to make the QF yesterday too.

[sameerph]

The Russian kid was in pretty good form having reached SF in J300 in Thailand last month and a final of J100 in Dubai. So, after checking that I thought it will be a 3 set win for Manas. So, the scoreline is plesant surprise.

He plays a German next.

[R2] (5) Manas Dhamne (IND,98) vs. Max Schoenhaus (GER,169)

[arjun2761]

Good win for Manas who is the fifth seed in this tournament! Most of the players in his half are ranked 60-160 range, so he has a chance to go deep here. The top seed is ranked #36 but he is in the other half.

[jayakris]

Well, he has to start beating top-100 players, and he really hasn't. Something tells me that he will start doing that this week! Go Manas!!

[jayakris]

Manas got upset in the second round at Cap D'Ail J200.

[R2] (5) Manas Dhamne (IND,98) l. Max Schoenhaus (GER,169), 26 61 26

He won a round in doubles but had lost yesterday in the QF of that too.

[jayakris]

There is a J200 in Frances (Istres) and there is also a J200 in Italy (Florence) this coming week. Both on clay. I have no idea why Manas is playing neither. He was in France this week for a J200, so I thought he would stay a week more and play at Istres. Or he could back in Italy closer to Piatti center in Florence, and he never entered that either.

But he has entered the J300 a week later (Apr 17) at Beaulieu-sur-Mer, France (and as of now in the qualies as #2 to make it worse). So why didn't he enter the Istres J200? What the heck is the idea behind the tour planning the Piatti guys are doing?

This is the same thing I have seen in the case of every Indian kid who has gone to foreign "academies" in Europe/USA. Totally weird tour planning that makes no sense, and never shows any results. That is what we always see. Maybe it can work for Europeans and Americans, but it doesn't seem to work for Indians.

[sameerph]

He was there in the Istres entry list earlier. You can see him in withdrawal list as LWMD. Hope he is not injured or anything.

[jayakris]

^^ Thanks! I thought I had just checked. Actually I also thought he was there earlier. My eyes aren't working. Uh oh... Then it is probably illness or injury

Okay then, about Piatti's planning I over-react sometimes. Pretty jumpy these days, because we only have paltry few players, and I just don't want things to go wrong!

[jayakris]

I think I know what happened. He is listed as a "PFLWMD" by ITF. That I think means "Penalty Free Withdrawal from Main Draw" - probably refers to a withdrawal after the list was "frozen" by ITF or something. I suppose that needs a medical certificate - to avoid the penalty. So he was listed way below in the withdrawal list than where I expected it.

[jayakris]

Manas, now ranked #85, made it into the J300 at Beaulieu-sur-Mer, France (clay) as among the last couple of players. In the first round, he gets the other guy who squeezed in with him, Woohyuk Chang (KOR,86).

[jayakris]

^^^ Finally a good top-100 win for Manas. He beat Woohyuk Chang, 62 62 in the R1 at the Beaulieu-sur-Mer J300

[sameerph]

That is a very good win especially the scoreline is impressive.

Btw, where you are getting live scores for this, Jay ?

[jayakris]

^^^ ITF sometimes posts the scores during the day on the junior event pages. I started noticing it for a few of the tournaments lately. Like 2 or 3 times during the day, after some batches of matches are done. Sometimes it is both on the draw page and the order-of-play page; sometimes it is at one of the two. I guess the tournament directors have been asked to update the scores when they can, and they do it from some of the places.

[sameerph]

Got it. Manas will next play 18 year old 4th seed Oliver Ojakaar (EST,24). Manas lost to Oliver couple of years back 46 46 in a J3 tournament. Hopefully, Manas will put up a fight.

[Dinesh]

Oliver won a J300 tournament last month on clay. So not an easy match.