ITF M25/M15 India- March/April 2023

[sameerph]

Overall turned out to be a bad day for us. None of the Indian could beat foreign players today and one Indian seed Digvijay got upset by a French player.

Overall, 8 Indians so far in last 16 with 1 first round match between Mukund and Serbian Butulija getting postponed to tomorrow.

[sameerph]

Karan Singh upset 7th seed Sid Rawat to make his second consecutive SF. 2 other Indians made it to the QF- fourth seed Mukund had to go thru 2 matches today and came thru both of them - first one against a Serbian in 3 sets and than against Faisal Qamar in straight sets. SD Prajwal Dev beat Vishnu Vardhan in straight sets to make it to QF. So, like last 2 weeks we have 3 Indians in QF.

We should have had 4 as Rishab Agarwal was 4-1 up in third set third seeded Ukranian Orlov but lost 5 straight games from there.

Mukund and SDPD play in 1 QF while Karan will play 702nd ranked British 21 year Loffhagen who seems to be in form having upset the top seed in first round. He has also reached an M25 final and SF this year so far. So, this is a tough one for Karan.

[sameerph]

Karan lost to Loffhagen 67(4) 36 in the QF and SD Prajwal Dev upset Mukund 16 75 76(4) to be the only Indian to make the SF.

Good for SDPD but disappointing for Mukund. I had pinned hopes on him to go all the way and get maximum points this week. He could have got into challenger main draws range with a title here. But, he continues to be inconsistent and is just not coming up to the level of 2019 when he reached his career high ranking.

SDPD will play against Loffhagen in the SF. Frankly I do not have hopes from this match, will be happy to be proved wrong.

[jayakris]

SDPD actually played a better match than I expected against Loffhagen. 57 46 loss in the SF. Glad to see SDPD playing a bit better lately. Picking up some good points now.

[jayakris]

In doubles at Mysuru, Niki/Rithvik beat Manish/Parikshit in the SF, 63 63, but they fell in the final to Mukund/Vishnu, 36 46... Actually Mukund/Vishnu played three rounds in the last 2 days to take the title.

[Dinesh]

Interesting choice by Mukund to skip Chennai Futures and play in Egypt instead.

Edit- just noticed that he withdrew from M15 Sharm El Sheikh too.

[sameerph]

Interesting choice by Mukund to skip Chennai Futures and play in Egypt instead.

Edit- just noticed that he withdrew from M15 Sharm El Sheikh too.

He is playing in M25 in Egypt in next 2 weeks. So, it is ok if he wants to take a week's break.

This week all 8 qualfiers are from India. Among the younger ones, 21 year olds Kabir Hans and Yash Churasia qualified as also 20 year old Ajay Malik. 15 year old Rethin Pranav had a good upset win in Q1 but lost to 25 year old Bharat Kumaran in Q1, 16 year old Rushil Khosla lost against 32 year old Lakshit Sood in Q2.

Rushil did make it in as lucky loser though. Overall 25 Indians in main draw singles of 32. Ramkumar is 2nd seed, Digvijay 3rd, Sid Rawat 4th, Manish 7th and Niki 8th seed. Other 3 seeds are foreigners.

[jayakris]

The main draw - https://www.itftennis.com/en/tournament ... tionCode=M

I didn't like the bottom quarter. Karan Singh and Kabir Hans are two guys I have my eyes on, but there are RamK and Niki to beat up on the youngsters ... Sid and Digvijay have the easier quarter, maybe. Let us see who comes out on top this week. Very tough to predict!

I am glad to see that the British youngster Loffhagen withdrew yesterday. If he were there, he probably would have won this one too. He seemed to be a great form and determined not to lose.

[jayakris]

A nice win for 17 year old Aryan Shah in the first round, 62 46 61 over qualifier Lakshit Sood... 19 yr old Karan Singh also continued his nice work, as he came back from two breaks down at 1-4 in the first set by winning 7 games in a row with 4 breaks when the opponent Woobin Shin (KOR,1073) retired. 21 year old Yash Charasia had a good win over veteran Vishnu Vardhan 64 67(5) 63... 16 year old LL Rushil Khosla could not do much against veteran VM Ranjeet in a 36 16 loss.

The rest of the matches went on expected lines without surprises. All 5 Indian seeds won the first round. 2nd seed RamK, 3rd seed Digvijay, 4th seed Sid Rawat, 7th seed Manish, 8th seed Niki. The Rishab Agrwal, Jagmeet Singh and VM Ranjeet round out the 11 Indians in the second round.

The scores/draw. 4 Indians are guaranteed to be in the QF and hopefully 2 from among RamK, Aryan and Yash playing foreigners will also advance.

RamK should watch out. The Kazakh guy Lomakin is the kind of grinder fighter who can upset him, if RamK starts getting agitated, becomes negative, and loses focus. Karan against Niki and Aryan against 5th seed Bax are the two matches I am most interested in. No live stream so far from Chennai though.

[sameerph]

So, Aryan Shah gets into ATP singles rankings now. He will be the second youngest Indian after 16 year old Rushil. Only other teenagers in the rankings are 19 year olds Chirag Duhan, Nishant Dabbas, Sandesh Kurale and highest ranked among them, Karan Singh who will be somewhere around 810 after today's win.

[jayakris]

Karan is actually 5th in Asia now among players under 20. The super-talented trio of Juncheng Shang (CHN,179), Abdullah Shelbayh (JOR,201) and Shintaro Mochizuki (JON,268) are at the top, and then it is Chak Lam Coleman Wong (HKG,692) and Karan. Of course, the first three are at an entirely different level where no Indian u20 player has reached in a long time (Yuki first hit the top-200 in 2012 at age 20 and 1 month; LP was the last u20 top-200 player from India, at age 19 in late 1992)

[Atithee]

The super-talented trio of Juncheng Shang (CHN,179), Abdullah Shelbayh (JOR,201) and Shintaro Mochizuki (JON,268) are at the top, and then it is Chak Lam Coleman Wong (HKG,692) and Karan.

Maybe our players should migrate to Jonastan where they can be groomed to reach loftier heights faster.

[jayakris]

Jonapan

[jayakris]

Updated draw/results. No surprises today. All eight seeds reached the QFs!! It is actually quite a rarity for it to happen. 5 Indians (RamK, Digvijay, Manish, Sid R, Niki) there. One Indian is assured to make the SF, as RamK plays Niki next. Hope at least 1 among the other three can win the SFs.

Good to see RamK playing with a purpose. He eradicated Lomakin 60 62 today. And it wasn't from serving 20 aces or anything either. Only three. He must have played positive tennis like he is capable of. Niki gave Karan no chance, serving 11 aces though. Aryan was no match for the 5th seed Bax.

Nice to see Manish getting back to some form too. He has been playing well in a few matches lately but was losing in the end. He may have started to turn things around (after having some physical issue bothering him for a while, if I am not mistaken).

[sameerph]

Digivijay and/or Manish need to win these matches against foreign similar ranked players at least at home if they want to move up. I had built up some hopes on Digivijay since last year and Manish few years back. But, this futures series has not been that good for either. so far. They are still 22 and 23 respectively. So, still time to take their career to at least being challenger level players.