ITF W25 Solapur, W40 Navi Mumbai- December 18-31 2023

[sameerph]

Usual year ending women tournaments take place next 2 weeks in Solapur and Navi Mumbai.

This is the entry list as of now for W25 in Solapur-

POSITION PLAYER WTA RANKING Country
1 Maria Timofeeva 133 RUS
2 Ekaterina Makarova 168 RUS
3 Sapfo Sakellaridi 287 GRE
4 Rutuja Bhosale 345 IND
5 Ayano Shimizu 368 JPN
6 Diana Marcinkevica 375 LAT
7 Sahaja YAMALAPALLI 401 IND
8 Misaki Matsuda 481 JPN
9 Vaidehi Chaudhari 505 IND
10 Daria Kudashova 531 RUS
11 Saki Imamura 575 JPN
12 Ekaterina Yashina 620 RUS
13 Pranjala Yadlapalli 620 IND
14 Zeel Desai 629 IND
15 Funa Kozaki 713 JPN
16 Shrivalli Rashmikaa Bhamidipaty 714 IND
17 Vicky Van de Peer 760 BEL
18 Chelsea Fontenel 764 SUI
19 (Special Exempt, if needed)
20 (Special Exempt, if needed)

Qualifying -

POSITION PLAYER WTA RANKING
1 Weronika Baszak 817 POL
2 Hiromi Abe 849 JPN
3 Ekaterina Kazionova 881 RUS
4 Humera Baharmus 901 IND
5 Honoka Kobayashi 912 JPN
6 Smriti Bhasin 1004 IND
7 Vaishnavi Adkar 1052 IND
8 Sravya Shivani Chilakalapudi 1081 IND

6 Indians are in main draw entry list. Rutuja and Sahaja will be seeded. I also see Maaya in the entry list low down in alternates. If she is willing to play here, she should get a wild card at least in qualifying.

Entry list for Navi Mimbai W40 is quite a bit tougher, only 2 Indians have got in the entry list - Rutuja and Sahaja. Vaidehi, Shrivalli and Zeel are 3, 4 and 5 out from main draw.

[Dinesh]

Notable matches involving Indians:

Pranjala plays Russian Kozionova and if she succeeds, she might be up against a slumping Marcinkevica, who’s seeded 6th, so a good chance for her to go deeper in the draw. Also, happy to see her name in the doubles draw partnering Zeel. She must be feeling fit at last.

8th seeded Vaidehi plays Zeel, and based on recent form, my prediction is Zeel winning this opening round.

7th seeded Sahaja has an easy path to the QF, probable opponent would be top seed Maria Timofeeva, who was a key performer at the recently concluded Tennis Premier League.

5th seeded Rutuja is coming back from Dengue fever, so not expecting much from her this week, explains why she skipped doubles this week. Although an easy opening round for her in Sravya Shivani.

Shrivalli narrowly missed out on the seeding and faces Japanese Matsuda. Tricky opponent who already has a win over SRB this year on her title win at the W25 Bengaluru ITF. But SRB is on a fine form in the second half of this year, so I give her the edge this week.

Vaishnavi plays a lower ranked Polish qualifier and should be comfortable getting to R2, but a tough encounter awaits in 3rd seed Greek Sakellaridi, who has reached the SF stage in at least 6 tournaments this year played at the W25 level or above.

Prediction summary:
Rutuja, Sahaja, Zeel to reach QF. Any more win from there would be a bonus.

Good luck to all players!!!

[Dinesh]

And Vaidehi proved me wrong!

First one into the second round - Vaidehi beats Zeel 6-1 6-2

[jayakris]

And Vaidehi proved me wrong!

I was quite surprised that you expected Zeel to be such a favorite to win this. I felt a 50-50 in this match, but I too didn't think Vaidehi would shellack her for 61 62.

Vaishnavi beat the Polish qualifier Bergler, 75 60 and next plays the 3rd seed Sakellaridi, who seems to be tough like you expected - she beat Yashina 64 76.

[PKBasu]

Slow progress in Solapur, with several R1 matches still to be played. In doubles, we have an all-Indian QF (Sahaja/Vaishnavi vs 2-Shrivalli/Vaidehi).

Zeel/Pranjala won their R1 in a STB (over Smriti Bhasin/Pooja Ingale), suggesting that Pranjala is still rusty. They play the Russian third seeds, Kazionova-Yashina in the QF. Pranjala also plays Q-Kazionova in the singles R1.

[PKBasu]

Disappointing R1 loss for Pranjala (36 63 16) suggests she is nowhere near the level she was at 3-5 years ago.
Shrivalli, Rutuja, Sahaja and Madhurima Sawant (beating a fellow wild card) are through to R2 in singles.

So six Indians in R2 of singles, of whom 2 play each other (Sahaja vs Madhurima).

[Dinesh]

Only Sahaja and Vaidehi moves to the QF round. Rutuja lost to Kudashova in the 3rd set tiebreaker. Top seed Timofeeva got upset by a 800+ ranked Japanese, so Sahaja may have a chance to move further. Vaidehi, however, has to play the 2nd seed Makarova.

[sameerph]

A bit disappointing loss for Rutuja but I guess she may not yet be 100% after recovering from Dengue. She had beaten the same opponent in straight sets just a couple of months back.

Shrivalli had a very good win in first round but could not challenge second seeded top 200 Russian Makarova. Vaidehi will Makaraova and I do not expect her to get an upset of this level.

Vaishnavi lost 36 06 against third seeded Greek player.

Hope Sahaja can win and continue our challenge in singles.

[Dinesh]

Adkar/Yamlapalli scored an upset straight sets win against the second seeds Chaudari/Bhamidipaty. Desai/Yadlapalli lost in 3 sets to the Russians Kazionova/Yashina. At least one Indian team in the semis.

[Dinesh]

Sahaja moves to the semis with a 6-3 6-2 win against her 857 ranked Japanese opponent. Another Japanese (#567) awaits to book a place in the final.

Vaidehi lost 6-3 6-3 against the 2nd seed.

[Dinesh]

Sahaja moves to the final with a 7-6 6-2 win over Imamura (#567).

[sameerph]

Going to be a tough final for Sahaja against a top 200 player and she will have to pull off her career best win to get the title.

[Dinesh]

And Sahaja somehow pulls it off

6-4 6-3 win against the world #186. Will move inside 350 once these points are added in 2 weeks.

[sameerph]

Excellent career best win for Sahaja. Great run by Sahaja here winning a title without dropping a set.

She played a lot of tournaments in US this year, did not get great results. But, I think those matches against tough competition must have improved her game which reflected on her results this week.

[jayakris]

And Sahaja somehow pulls it off

"Somehow pulls it off"?? She shellacked Makarova, and that is what you say?

She actually had 40-30 and AD out match points at 64 52, and dropped serve. No problem; she took 4 straight points off Makarova's serve, broke her for yet another time, and took the match. She broke the Russian in almost every service game, it seemed like...

As per Sameer, this is her first top-200 win. Sahaja will now move up to around 340. Rutuja is just a handful of points ahead and Karman some 16 points ahead. If Sahaja gets to the SF this coming week at Navi Mumbai, she will actually be the India #2 on January first (unless Rutuja also makes SF). That won't be easy though.