ITF M25 Mandya,Bhopal, Chennai- Jan 2024

[sameerph]

Karan lost in the SF.

[SF] Karan Singh (IND,794) l. Jelle Sels (NED,712) 16 46

Watched second set of this match on a bad ITF live stream which kept breaking. Karan seems to have all the shots but just needs to develop the patience to construct points and maybe improve fitness too to play long and more matches in a week.

Still good week for Karan and 8 points which will take him to career high around 725 in ATP singles rankings.

[gunsnroses]

Karan squandered a 3-0 lead in the 2nd set and committed too many unforced errors. Mixing both singles and doubles is a little challenging for sure.

[sameerph]

SidV also lost after leading by a set and a break.

[SF] Siddharth Vishwakarma (IND,749) l. (3) Orel Kimhi (ISR,553) 62 57 46

[gunsnroses]

SidV hit some mind blowing inside out forehands. What timing he has.

[sameerph]

Opportunity missed for him though, he could have won the title this week. Manish Sureshkumar and Parikshit Somani won the doubles title.

From next week, it will get tougher with 4-5 higher ranked players coming in. Only Mukund, Rishab Agarwal,Sid V, Karan and Ishaque Eqbal have direct entry to main draw.

[Dinesh]

What happened to Yuvan Nandal who was supposedly playing junior events until he turned 18 to gain JE entries?

[sameerph]

What happened to Yuvan Nandal who was supposedly playing junior events until he turned 18 to gain JE entries?

Must be injured. In any case, JE's are available only at M15's. Another one who did the same, Aryan Shah is only playing qualifiers, I suppose he will play JE spots at M15's abroad later.

[jayakris]

^^^ Aryan is in good shape anyway, thanks to the Kalaburagi QF in November. He is the 4th seed in the Bhopal qualies, as the highest seeded Indian. His current ranking of 1241 is enough for him to make it into any M15 qualies, generally as a high seed.

[sameerph]

Yes, with those junior exempts he may get into main draw of few M15's before hopefully he will start making M15's on his ATP ranking.

[jayakris]

In the Bhopal M25 qualies, the 2 Indians who were seeded to qualify and one surprise made the main draw. The 4th seed Aryan Shah beat Yash Chaurasia and Abhinav Shanmugam in two STB matches. 7th seed beat a Vietnamese and then won an STB over Vishnu Vardhan. The surprise was unseeded Parth Aggarwal who beat 13th seed Bharath Kumaran and the 6th seed Mattias Southcombe in straight sets to qualify.

So we have three qualifiers joining 8th seed Mukund, Rishab, Sid V, Karan and Ishaq Eqbal and wildcards Manish S, Sid Banthia, Raghav Jaisinghani, and Bhavesh Gour for 12 Indians in the main draw.

The main draw is not great though. Karan plays the top seed Crawford (GBR), Aryan plays the 7th seed Orel Kimhi (ISR). Manish plays Madhvin and Raghav plays Bhavesh, so a couple of them will get first round points. Sid V and Sid B play qualifiers. Will need upsets for anybody other than Mukund and a couple of others to make even the 2nd round. We may only have 4 or 5 Indians in the R2 and maybe only 1 or 2 in the QF. Here are the draws.

[sameerph]

Excellent upset win by 18 year old Aryan Shah over 7th seed and last week's champion Orel Kimhi (ISR,553) 61 63.

Our 8th seed Mukund got upset 76(5) 46 46 against David Pichler of Austria. Karan Singh put up a very good fight against top seed Oliver Crawford of Great Britain losing 76(2) 46 26.

So, we have 4 Indians in second round.

[R2] (Q) Aryan Shah (IND,1244) vs. Thijmen Loof (NED,1976)

[R2] Siddharth Vishwakarma (IND,746) vs. (Q) Matt Hulme (AUS,1443)

[R2] (WC) Manish Sureshkumar (IND,923) vs. (5) Kris van Wyk (RSA,422)

[R2] (WC) Raghav Jaisinghani (IND,1272) vs. (4) Bogdom Bobrov (RUS,410)

[Dinesh]

Great win for Aryan. Just to clarify, the above matchups are for R2

[Edited to R2... Mod, Jay]

[jayakris]

[R2] (Q) Aryan Shah (IND,1244) d. Thijmen Loof (NED,1976), 5-0 Ret.
[R2] (WC) Manish Sureshkumar (IND,923) d. (5) Kris van Wyk (RSA,422), 61 76(4)
[R2] (WC) Raghav Jaisinghani (IND,1272) l. (4) Bogdom Bobrov (RUS,410), 26 16

Two unexpected wins to start the day! Excellent upset by Manish, and a nice break for Aryan who gets 3 more pts to take his tally to 8 and move up the ranks to near #1100 in a week's time. He will have no problem getting into qualies of ITF events now and get seeded high. Very smooth start to the pro career for the 18 yr old.

Sid V's match is on now. Update: Sid V also won.

[R2] Siddharth Vishwakarma (IND,746) d. (Q) Matt Hulme (AUS,1443), 64 62

So three in the QFs.

[jayakris]

So, the Bhopal M25 (Thursday) QFs for us:

[QF] (Q) Aryan Shah (IND,1244) vs (1) Oliver Crawford (GBR,212)
[QF] (WC) Manish Sureshkumar (IND,923) vs (4) Bogdan Bobrov (RUS,410)
[QF] Siddharth Vishwakarma (IND,746) vs (3) Eric Vanshelboim (UKR,393)

[sameerph]

Good that 3 Indians made the QF when only 1 (Mukund) was seeded to do so. Next matches looks quite tough though for all 3, ranking gap of at least 300 separating them from their opponents.