ITF M25/M15 India- March/April 2023

[Rajiv]

Who put sense into RamK to play M25 in India?

Who told you that he has become sensible? He had no other choice. It was like play this, or stop playing singles. Even he would make the sensible choice. [Rajiv may have told him; but it isn't like he has ever really listened to good sense from Rajiv ]

For a ranking which is in free fall ITF's are a safe quick fix medicine to address that problem immediately and stop the situation from further deteriorating which I was after him to enter the futures last year in USA at which even Prajnesh also was playing but didn't
Few months later in Oct forced and made sure he entered Jakarta +India futures to maximize 60 points which were on offer at these futures, and Jakarta was no visa issue as visa is on arrival but like Mysuru withdrew at the last moment

So Ram finally listens to the Jakarta option albeit 6 months later and enters Jakarta M25 next week after Chennai Futures.
Not only it helps with valuable points but gets you the all important confidence back again after notching few victories and Somdev did it , Prakash did it and now even Donskoy a former top 100, too is now heavily embroiled in the Futures tour .

Even if he musters upto 20 odd points one that could get him near about to 350/360 level which in turn can prove lucky to get in as a last minute entry for the quali spot for the Challengers or even ATP if you are on the site and no other option is available for the tournament ,and this is stop gap approach of trying to be lucky seems to be the best option in view of that his rankings wont even allow him to get into a qualies acceptance entry list and hopefully this get lucky approach should give him a glimmer of hope for the UK Grass court Challengers

[Dinesh]

3 Indians advance to the semis. Other than Ramk, both Sid Rawat (7-5 7-6) and Manish (6-4 4-2 retd) upset their higher seeded opponents. Can Digvijay make it a clean sweep?

[sameerph]

Yes, Digvijay does it. Wins 63 62 against his French opponent and makes it an all Indian SF.

So, at least in last week of this circuit we will have an Indian title winner and our players will pick up maximum points available.

RamK vs. Sid Rawat and Digvijay vs Manish in the SF.

The way he has been playing this week, RamK should have it easy. I expect Digivijay vs Manish to be a close match.

[jayakris]

What a day there in Chennai! Indians save their best for the last (even if it is for small points)!!

The doubles SFs just finished almost simultaneously. 15 minutes ago, it seemed like 4 foreigners and no Indians will be in the doubles final (shockingly), but no... Both Indian teams won by identical comeback scores, 46 63 [10-4]. Sai Karteek Reddy Ganta and Theertha Shashank Macherla over Vladyslav Orlov (UKR)/ Patrick Edward Toman (USA) and also 3rd seeds Nitin Kumar Sinha and Vishnu Vardhan over top seeds Grigoriy Lomakin (KAZ)/ David Perez Sanz (ESP).

So, it will be 8 different Indians playing the singles semis and double final tomorrow! How about that?

Those foreigners can go to Meenampakkam, and find a bar near the airport to drown their sorrows in some beverages. I am sure they can't wait to get the hell out of Chennai

[jayakris]

What happened to Niki and Rithvik this week? After the finals loss last week, they did not enter this week's doubles. Any injury issue for Rithvik?

By the way, Rithvik Bollipalli (age 22) has now gone up to a career high live ranking around 260. Along with Rithvik and Anirudh Chandrasekar (age 24), Parikshit Somani (age 23) and now Sai Karteek Ganta (22) are two more guys under age 25 who are making some moves up the doubles ladder. Then there is Manish (23) who is also at a career high around 425 in doubles.

Also, if I remember correctly, Parikshit and Sai Karteek were two guys who were included in Bops' Dubai camp in the last minute after Yuki and RamK decided not to go there. Parikshit has gone up from ~525 to ~325 since then. Sai Karteek has gone from ~675 to ~500. Rithvik has gone from ~350 to ~260. Pretty much everybody who went to Bops' camp is at career highs in doubles, in barely 4 months since then. I think there were some dismissive comments here about Bops' camp (not from me ) but it certainly looks like it only helped the guys. Thank you, Bops!!

Including the latest guy Sai Karteek, who will be right around 500 after a week, there will soon be SEVENTEEN Indians in the ATP-500. Having 5 of those guys at age 25 or less, is also not a bad thing.

[jayakris]

Now, who the heck is Teertha Shashank Macherla who is in the doubles final at Chennai, you wonder? ... Well, he is a 21 year old who was not too bad in the junior tour 4-5 years ago. At least in doubles. He had a couple of doubles titles and another final in junior ITFs. One title was actually with Rithvik. He had also played with Sai Karteek a bit in the juniors. Anyway, he had 2 ATP points and a ranking in the 2300s but will move up inside top-1500 now. He can get into M15 events' doubles draws without too much trouble now.

[sameerph]

By the way, Rithvik Bollipalli (age 22) has now gone up to a career high live ranking around 260. Along with Rithvik and Anirudh Chandrasekar (age 24), Parikshit Somani (age 23) and now Sai Karteek Ganta (22) are two more guys under age 25 who are making some moves up the doubles ladder. Then there is Manish (23) who is also at a career high around 425 in doubles.

All of them except Manish are doubles specialists too. Only in last 2-3 years I have seen players become doubles specialists in early 20's as it seems they knew their ceiling in singles. It will be good for them if 1-2 of them can get into top 80 and into ATP's and grand slams. Aniruddh and now Rithivik are already showing great improvement in one year.

[jayakris]

Oh boy, what's up with RamK today. Sid seems to be blowing him out of the court. Come on RamK... Put up a fight. Do something. Happy for Sid though. Nope, no last ditch fight from RamK. 63 61, it's a big win for Sid Rawat!!

4 of 5 BPs converted by Sid and 0 of 6 by RamK. That was the big difference, really. RamK just could not do it at the points where it counted.

Digvijay is up 64 11 on Manish. This is more of a dog fight like we expected. But Digvijay has kept his nose a bit ahead through the match.

[Rajiv]

Ram suffers a ignonimous straight sets defeat and the humiliating 61 score in S2 without any fight is most agonizing.

Thought he would make optimum use of a literal home tournament in Chennai  even though had wrongly skipped Mysore, but all we got couple of wins over innocent lambs in his own backyard

Couldn't even handle Rawat that too without any contest clearly indicates the singles game is in complete tatters and God knows how will the 2 futures in Jakarta pan out where the level of competition will be 3 to 4 times greater than this M15 Chennai.

[sameerph]

Yes, quite shocking result for RamK. His scorelines in earlier matches this week were quite encouraging and I thought he will get back on track with a title and than boosted by that good performance in Jakarata futures series. But, 36 16 loss against Sid is a setback for him. Somehow his serve just seems nowhere close to his best. He used to serve 10 or so a match in worst case. Today he had 3 aces and 4 double faults. On the other hand Sid Rawat had 5 aces and 1 double faults. Other stats which went against RamK in today's match apart from breakpoint conversion which Jay mentioned.

Digivijay came thru in straight sets 64 64 against Manish.

So, Sid vs. Digvijay final, head to head 1-1 but both were close 3 setters. So, expect another close match.

[jayakris]

I posted something in the RamK thread about the crunch point stats today on RamK. I noticed too, Sameer, that he was not serving aces the previous three rounds either (which I took as a good thing, that he was getting some confidence back in his shot-making). All kinds of things are messed up, it seems. Let us discuss RamK in his thread.

Back to the M15 results, what a nice thing to see that Sid and Digvijay are in the final!

Sid Rawat, if I am not mistaken, is a positive guy who made a career for himself all by himself (so to say) fighting his way. Je was a "nobody" in the junior circuit in the 2007-2010 period, when he only reached a junior ranking of #539, and hardly played any event outside of Delhi area (he only payed 8 ITF junior events, and one trip to Indore and one to Chennai is all the travel he could manage). That same guy later managed to go all the way up to a #430 career-high in ATP, making it into so many challengers and futures events abroad, mostly all in Asia. I don't think he ever traveled to Europe or USA for a pro event. He always looked like a self-learning type of guy, who could turn out to be a good coach later. Glad to see him in the final.

And it is great to see that Digvijay hasn't suddenly "lost it" in his budding career - after looking very promising a few months ago. He has picked up enough points to go about 40 spots up and get back right at his career high inside top-560. He continues to be our best upcoming youngster under age 23.

Meanwhile Nitin Kumar Sinha and "Mr. Evergreen" Vishnu Vardhan won the doubles final over SaiKarteek and TeerthaShashank, 61 67(2) [7-10]. The younger team made it quite close in the end! ... Nitin (who is just under 25) now gets to a career high inside top-725, so he can fancy a doubles career too.

[jayakris]

Digvijay won the final 64 76(3) over Sid. Congrats!

[knarayen]

By the way, Rithvik Bollipalli (age 22) has now gone up to a career high live ranking around 260. Along with Rithvik and Anirudh Chandrasekar (age 24), Parikshit Somani (age 23) and now Sai Karteek Ganta (22) are two more guys under age 25 who are making some moves up the doubles ladder. Then there is Manish (23) who is also at a career high around 425 in doubles.

All of them except Manish are doubles specialists too. Only in last 2-3 years I have seen players become doubles specialists in early 20's as it seems they knew their ceiling in singles. It will be good for them if 1-2 of them can get into top 80 and into ATP's and grand slams. Aniruddh and now Rithivik are already showing great improvement in one year.

Bops made a comment - after he won the ATP Title making him the oldest to do so - that the future of Indian tennis will be in doubles or something like that.