ITF M25 Mandya,Bhopal, Chennai- Jan 2024

[Dinesh]

I think Manish is the only one I expect to win from today’s lineup. He has been in a good form this series.

[sameerph]

I think Manish is the only one I expect to win from today’s lineup. He has been in a good form this series.

SidV has also been good form, even better than Manish. But, both their opponents have won gone deep at M25 levels in recent months. So, it is tough, lets us see.

[sameerph]

All 3 lost in the QF.

[QF] (Q) Aryan Shah (IND,1244) l. (1) Oliver Crawford (GBR,212) 36 46
[QF] (WC) Manish Sureshkumar (IND,923) l. (4) Bogdan Bobrov (RUS,410) 62 26 46
[QF] Siddharth Vishwakarma (IND,746) l. (3) Eric Vanshelboim (UKR,393) 26 36

Manish won the first set easily but could not follow that up later. Decent showing by Aryan against a player ranked close to top 200.

[prasen9]

As expected. The ranking differences are too much for upsets.

[sameerph]

Good results for us in qualifying in Chennai futures. 3 Indians- Vishnu Vardhan, Adil Kalyanpur and Yash Chaurasia upset seeds in final qualifying round. Also Abhinav Sanjeev and Yash Yadav also qualified for main draw. Ranjit Virali-Murugesan made it in as lucky loser.

So, 13 Indian in main draw of 32. And these are the first round match-ups-

Bernard Tomic (AUS/1) vs. Grigoriy Lomakin (KAZ)
Adil Kalyanpur (IND/Q) vs. Abhinav Sanjeev Shanmugam (IND/Q)
Nam Hoang Ly (VIE) vs. Karan Singh (IND)
Sandro Kopp (AUT/7) vs. Bharath Nishok Kumaran (IND/wc)

Eric Vanshelboim (UKR/4) vs. David Pichler (AUT)
Shivank Bhatnagar (IND/Q) vs. Ranjeet Virali-Murugesan (IND/L.L)
M Rifqi Fitriadi (INA) vs. Aryan Shah (IND/wc)
Kris Van Wyk (RSA/6) vs. Matt Hulme (AUS/Q)

Bogdan Bobrov (RUS/5) vs. Yash Chaurasia (IND/Q)
Jelle Sels (NED) vs. Mitsuki Wei Kang Leong (MAS)
Luca Castelnuovo (SUI) vs. Yash Yadav (IND/Q)
Arthur Weber (FRA/3) vs. Manish Sureshkumar (IND/wc)

Orel Kimhi (ISR/8) vs. Ishaque Eqbal (IND)
Alexey Zakharov (RUS) vs. Vishnu Vardhan (IND/Q)
Sasikumar Mukund (IND) vs. Yunseok Jang (KOR/Q)
Dominik Palan (CZE/2) vs. Parth Aggarwal (IND/wc)

[PKBasu]

Very strong field this week (perhaps because of the Challengers coming up in India next month), headed by former world #17 (and junior #1) Bernard Tomic. Only one Indian got in directly, and he (Mukund) has made R2 after beating a qualifier. Lots of Indians got wildcards (were there many last minute withdrawals??). Two more Indian qualifiers are sure to make R2, as there are two matches pitting Indian qualifiers against each other. In FQR, Vishnu beat the Israeli top seed, Adil the British 5th seed and Yash Chaurasia the Moroccan 7th seed.

Bernard Tomic (AUS/1) d. Grigoriy Lomakin (KAZ) 63 52 retd
Adil Kalyanpur (IND/Q) vs. Abhinav Sanjeev Shanmugam (IND/Q)
Nam Hoang Ly (VIE) d. Karan Singh (IND) 63 64
Sandro Kopp (AUT/7) d. Bharath Nishok Kumaran (IND/wc) 61 75

Eric Vanshelboim (UKR/4) vs. David Pichler (AUT)
Shivank Bhatnagar (IND/Q) vs. Ranjeet Virali-Murugesan (IND/LL)
M Rifqi Fitriadi (INA) d. Aryan Shah (IND/wc) 62 31retd
Kris Van Wyk (RSA/6) vs. Matt Hulme (AUS/Q)

Bogdan Bobrov (RUS/5) vs. Yash Chaurasia (IND/Q)
Jelle Sels (NED) vs. Mitsuki Wei Kang Leong (MAS) 76(0) 63
Luca Castelnuovo (SUI) vs. Yash Yadav (IND/Q)
Arthur Weber (FRA/3) vs. Manish Sureshkumar (IND/wc)

Orel Kimhi (ISR/8) vs. Ishaque Eqbal (IND)
Alexey Zakharov (RUS) vs. Vishnu Vardhan (IND/Q)
Sasikumar Mukund (IND) d. Yunseok Jang (KOR/Q) 46 62 61
Dominik Palan (CZE/2) d. Parth Aggarwal (IND/wc)

[prasen9]

@Atithee, as you know the qualifier vs qualifier matchups are part of the design of APT/ITF draws. So, that is not random. Q's and LLs here are Indians. So, they meet each other.

[Atithee]

@prasen9—thanks. I did not know this. Odd though. I’ll read up on it.

[prasen9]

My bad. It seems like the draw is made with qualifier slots. So, all tournaments are not supposed to have Q vs Q matchups. But, some do by random luck. After the draw is made at random with the main draw entry players and a bunch of Qs holding place, and the qualifiers are identified, the Q's are again drawn to map a qualifier to a Q slot in the draw.

Please ignore what I said. In this case, the Q v Q was drawn first. Then, a whole bunch of Indians qualified making this.

If the draws are being fudged, we sould say that someone tampered and did this Q v Q even without knowing it would be Indian vs Indian for sure but knowing it could be with high probability because most possibly a lot of Indians would qualify. So, your suspicion stands. I have no proof of it being fudged (or not) either way.

For some reason, I thought a QvQ matchup was there in a lot of draws and thought it was a feature instead of a randomly drawn matchup. But, apparently not. I just seem to notice a lot of QvQ matchups because with the number of Qs we have, that is quite likely in a lot of tournaments by chance. Sort of like two people having the same birthday in a room with 25 people is quite likely. More likely than what our intuition tells us ...

[PKBasu]

Full R1 singles results:

Bernard Tomic (AUS/1) d. Grigoriy Lomakin (KAZ) 63 52 retd
Adil Kalyanpur (IND/Q) l. Abhinav Sanjeev Shanmugam (IND/Q) 57 36
Nam Hoang Ly (VIE) d. Karan Singh (IND) 63 64
Sandro Kopp (AUT/7) d. Bharath Nishok Kumaran (IND/wc) 61 75

Eric Vanshelboim (UKR/4) d. David Pichler (AUT) 26 63 63
Shivank Bhatnagar (IND/Q) l. Ranjeet Virali-Murugesan (IND/LL) 67(5) 16
M Rifqi Fitriadi (INA) d. Aryan Shah (IND/wc) 62 31retd
Kris Van Wyk (RSA/6) l. Matt Hulme (AUS/Q) 46 67(2)

Bogdan Bobrov (RUS/5) d. Yash Chaurasia (IND/Q) 62 76(3)
Jelle Sels (NED) vs. Mitsuki Wei Kang Leong (MAS) 76(0) 63
Luca Castelnuovo (SUI) d. Yash Yadav (IND/Q) 62 61
Arthur Weber (FRA/3) d. Manish Sureshkumar (IND/wc) 57 36

Orel Kimhi (ISR/8) d. Ishaque Eqbal (IND) 75 63
Alexey Zakharov (RUS) d. Vishnu Vardhan (IND/Q) 63 63
Sasikumar Mukund (IND) d. Yunseok Jang (KOR/Q) 46 62 61
Dominik Palan (CZE/2) d. Parth Aggarwal (IND/wc)

[sameerph]

Finally Mukund had a very good win over second seed Dominik Palan (CZE,330) 57 76(3) 75 in the second round.

He was the only Indian to win today. Other 2 Indians left in the draw- Ranjit Virali-Murugesan and Abhinav Sanjeev lost in second round.

[QF] Sasi Kumar Mukund (IND,554) vs. Alexy Zakharov (RUS,726)

[jayakris]

Finally! Come on Mukund. Let's make a run for Pete's sake! (Don't know which Pete, but anyway...)

[arjun2761]

Finally! Come on Mukund. Let's make a run for Pete's sake! (Don't know which Pete, but anyway...)

Ok, we can substitute it with for Vishnu's or Shiva's sake if Pete does not resonate with Mukund.
I think the original Pete refers to St. Peter.

[Atithee]

Let’s just aim for Pete Sampras for now.

[sameerph]

Mukund followed up his upset with another win.

[QF] Sasi Kumar Mukund (IND,554) d. Alexy Zakharov (RUS,726) 75 63

Next,

[SF] Sasi Kumar Mukund (IND,554) vs. Jelle Sels (NED,711)

That is a tough match. Sels was ranked 127 in 2022 and is on comeback trail. He made it to the final of M25 in first week.