The Sports-India Community

The Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan is finally showing the world, especially America, what they are made of. The President of the Glorious Nation makes a joke about women every year, I think on International Women's Day. Methinks those jokes have spurred these hordes of Khazakhi women/girls to make benefit by beating up and eating up hapless, haggard, and sometimes hopeless Indian kids to show the world what they are made of: heavy steel.

More seriously, the billionaire Bulat Utemuratov has tried to make Khazakhstan into a tennis nation. Maybe his efforts are paying dividends. How many of these are imports though a la Rybakina?

Bulat and Borat make Khazkhstan great again!

^^^

4 of the 5 Kazakh girls won the QFs at the Dehradun J30. The two Indians and the Indian American Aanya Choubey could not win even a set. On the boys' side Vihan keeps on trucking. A double bagel over qualifier Keshav Goel today. I mean, it is unfair for 16 year olds to have to play 13 year olds like this ... All four semifinalists are Indians.

J30s are the lowest level junior tournament now, it seems. The equivalent of what used to be called a G5 junior tournament (can Sameer or someone else confirm that my understanding is correct?).

The only reason we should be a bit interested is because there is a 13 year old Vihaan Reddy (#1177j) and a 14 year old 3rd seed Samarth Sahita (943j) playing in the singles SF, respectively against 16 year olds Q-Kashit Nagrale (UNR, hence perhaps playing his first tournament) and 7-Fateh Singh (#1083j).

Yes, J30 is J5. J60 is J4, J100 is J3, J200 is J2, J300 is J1. Basically the finals points itself is used for the grade now. J500 is Grade A, grand slams at 1000 pts.

PKB, look above, there is a good discussion of Vihan in the previous 2 pages from this post onward. Basically a kid who grew up in America, who is very high (like #1 in in his age group) in the USTA rankings. We are unsure if he will play under Indian colors later, but he seems bound to be among the highest ranked in his age group pretty soon.

Vihaan thrashed another qualifier Kashit Nagrole 61 61. Up in the final against 7th seed Fateh Singh who beat third seed Samarth Sahita.

13 year old Vihaan Reddy is clearly a huge talent. If AITA had any sense, they would reach out to him, and urge him to keep his Indian passport and turn out for India. He and Manas could indeed be a formidable pairing for India -- a la Shapovalov and Auger-Aliassime for Canada. (OK, I know I'm getting a bit ahead of myself... ).


I know so many kids like this who have mixed-up identities and nationalities. A good friend's son, Sahil Prakash, has been brought up in Singapore by parents whose hearts are deeply Indian (and Sahil himself sees himself as Indian). But he happened to be born in the US, and so has "USA" as his country of representation -- while playing in Singapore and neighbouring country tournaments mainly. He could beat me when he was 13, and clearly was a great talent at 15, but his mother wants him to focus on studies, so he can't give much time to his tennis game -- which has deteriorated a bit as a result. He doesn't get as many wildcards as he would if he had a Singapore passport, and of course he gets no help in India (and hasn't played any tournaments in India yet either). And he hasn't played in the US either, despite that passport. Falling between stools a bit...

Never had any doubt about this result. Vihaan Reddy beat 16 year old Yash Singh 64 62 in the final. Did not drop a set this week. Won first 2 tournaments he played in ITF juniors at 13. He is clearly a special talent. Remains to be seen if he plays for India when time comes for him to choose.

As per article from Kamesh, he will play only these 2 tournaments in this series and then move to US for Easter Bowl- under 14 ( and maybe under 16 event).

True. It was about as sure a title as I have ever felt for anybody in a tennis event. For you and I to feel that in just the second tournament of a thirteen year old kid, is something amazing, isn't it? The kid was unranked last week but, he will be around top-800 in the world and in the Indian top-25 junior rankings on Monday. The youngest in that list with everybody else but Manas being 2 to 4 years older.

Vihaan Reddy's team changed their decision to go back to US after 2 weeks of tournaments and he is now going to compete in all 4 weeks.

And he is into the SF now in this week's J30 in Bhilai. On a 13 match winning streak now, he did lose a set in second round though which itself has been rare in this series. Apart from Vihaan into boys SF are couple of Indian 15 year olds, Kandhavel Mahalingam and Daksh Kukreti and a 15 year old Spaniard.

In girls, it an all Indian SF- top seed Aishvarya Jadhav ( who was India #1 in under 14 team events last year), third seed 16 year old Amodini Naik, fourth seed 13 year Prisha Shinde and 15 year Nemha Sarah are thru to SF.

Yeah, I was surprised that Vihan took an SE spot and played this week too. Why not, I guess. The matches have been easier than practice sets for him so far, except that shocking drop of one set the other day ...

A kid listed under Spain is there this week. Victor Mohanram. He was in India earlier, if I am not mistaken. He got a Spanish citizenship or something?

sameerph wrote: ↑Thu Mar 23, 2023 3:40 pm Vihaan Reddy's team changed their decision to go back to US after 2 weeks of tournaments and he is now going to compete in all 4 weeks.

Good for him but honestly anything more than 3 weeks isn’t good on the body. Unless he’s traveling with a fitness trainer etc. Very important to stay injury free. He also went deep in both weeks. So that’s a lot of matches.

Vihaan thru third straight final with another straight sets final. He will meet Kandhavel Mahalingam in final. Kandhavel upset top seed here. Let's see if he puts up some fight against 13 year old Vihaan.

Girls final will be 2 girls from Maharashtra - 14 year Aishvarya Jadhav and 13 year old Prisha Shinde.

Good to see Aishwarya doing well too. I think she is quite good too. She didn't play last week, so we don't know how she would have fared against the Kazakh murder-girls who showed up!... She had beaten Maaya earlier this year, but had lost to Prisha late last year (at the Pune J3 where she still made it as an LL after losing to Prisha but went to the semis). Among the 14 years olds, Rishitha Reddy Basireddy, Sohini Sanjay Mohanti and Aishwarya Jhadhav seem to be the best, with the group right behind them being Maaya, Prisha and Harithasree. Looking forward to the Ashwarya-Prisha match tomorrow.

Kandhavel Mahalingam did put up a fight but in the end Vihaan won 36 76(3) 63. Third title in 3 weeks for the 13 year Vihaan Reddy in his first 3 tournaments on ITF junior circuit. Quite amazing, I have not seen too many Indians win 3 back to back tournaments at any level, forget about doing it in his/her first set of tournaments at that level.

In girls, 13 year Prisha Shinde thrashed Aishvarya Jadhav who is close to a year older 62 62 to win the title. Prisha is someone who looks quite promising.

So 3 consecutive J30 singles titles for 13 year old Vihaan Reddy. Very impressive!

The highest ranked player in the field was Pratyaksh XXX (weird 'surname'), ranked 741, and second seed was Smit Patel, ranked 877. Both lost in the QF.

So, J30 is the equivalent of a Grade 5 junior event from the previous nomenclature. Nonetheless, a great start for this 13-year-old kid, still a citizen of India.