India Challengers February 2024

[sameerph]

There are 4 India Challengers starting next week with 3 100's last year - Chennai, Bengaluru and Pune and followed up this time with 75 in New Delhi.

This is the entry list for next week in Chennai-

Seed Name Seeding Ranking
1 Luca Nardi 114
2 Sumit Nagal 121
3 Vitaliy Sachko 165
4 Dalibor Svrcina 194
5 Federico Gaio 197
6 Stefano Travaglia 201
7 Ugo Blanchet 214
8 Stefano Napolitano 216
Oriol Roca Batalla 217
Aziz Dougaz 219
Yu Hsiou Hsu 230
Tung-Lin Wu 238
Coleman Wong 247
Maxime Janvier 260
Geoffrey Blancaneaux 262
Giovanni Fonio 269
Maks Kasnikowski 271
Evgeny Donskoy 276
Moez Echargui 279
Enrico Dalla Valle 280
Bernard Tomic 302
(WC)
(WC)
(WC)
(SE)
(SE)
(Q)
(Q)
(Q)
(Q)
(Q)
(Q)

In the qualifying entry list, Mukund and SDPD have made it in, Rishab Agarwal is 1 out, Sid V are 5 out, others too in alternates.

RamK is not in qualifying entry list, so he may be have been promised one of the wild cards, maybe Mukund will get another one.

Doubles entry list has 3 all Indian pairings of Arjun Kadhe / Jeevan Nedunchezhiyan, Rithvik Choudary Bollipalli / Niki Kaliyanda Poonacha and Saketh Myneni / Ramkumar Ramanathan and Balaji with Begemann and a couple will get wild cards .

[sameerph]

As per news reports, main draw wild cards for Chennai Challenger to RamK, Mukund and Basilashvili. Why 1 wild card to foreign player when we already have limited number of challengers.

Qualifying wild cards to- Manish Sureshkumar, Abhinav Sanjeev, Sid Vishwakarma and 16 year old Rethin Pranav as per news report. However, as per latest updated entry list, Manish and SidV have got into qualifying draw on their ranking along with SDPD and Karan Singh. So, those 2 wild cards will be given away to someone else.

[Sin Hombre]

This is a bit ridiculous.

[sameerph]

Qualifying wild cards to- Manish Sureshkumar, Abhinav Sanjeev, Sid Vishwakarma and 16 year old Rethin Pranav as per news report. However, as per latest updated entry list, Manish and SidV have got into qualifying draw on their ranking along with SDPD and Karan Singh. So, those 2 wild cards will be given away to someone else.

Those 2 wild cards went to Bharath Kumaran and L. Badrinath. Also Ishaq Eqbal and Nitin Sinha made it in as alternates. So, we have 11 Indians in qualifying draw of 32. But, only 1 of them (SDPD) is a seed. So, everyone else pays a seed in first qualifying round. There is 1 all Indian match-up between SDPD and Abhinav Sanjeev but rest are all playing higher seeds. So, any win there would be bonus.

Also would be interested to watch Rethin Pranav on live stream against a player ranked in top 600.

[jayakris]

None of the Indians (12 of them) beat a higher ranked player today, and all losses were in straight sets. The only Indian seed, #10 SDPD, won his game over Abhinav Shanmugam, and that is that for the Q1. Horrible. I expected at least one or two to sprig a surprise.

The only good news was how well Rethin played the 9th seed, #574 Karlovskiy, in a 46 67(4) loss. I am told that he even had four set points in the second set before the loss. That is pretty good for a 16 year old kid. Karan had a 46 67(4) loss tpp the 11th seed, so he also played well. That was about it.

[sameerph]

SDPD upsets higher ranked foreign player to make it to main draw.

At Chennai Challenger 100

[Q2] (10) S.D. Prajwal Dev (IND,611) d. (4) Vadym Ursu (UKR,436) 63 63

So, we have 4 Indians in the main draw.

And SDPD gets Sumit in first round.

[R1] (2) Sumit Nagal (IND,121) vs. (Q) S.D. Prajwal Dev (IND,611)

[R1] (WC) Sasi Kumar Mukund (IND,486) vs. Maks Kasnikowaski (POL,271)

[R1] (WC) Ramkumar Ramanathan (IND,459) vs. (6) Oriol Roca Batalla (ESP,216)

Hope 1 of Mukund and RamK causes an upset. Both have lost their only match against their opponents earlier.

[arjun2761]

Good to see SDPD get an upset win and qualify!

I think the rest of the Indians in the qualifiers lost tamely to higher ranked players, so none of them (e.g., Karan Singh) are showing any sparks by taking advantage of home events.

[Sanjay]

SDPD is from my town so that makes me doubly happy!

[arjun2761]

Nice upset win by Mukund and confident win by Sumit. Now we need Ramk to complete the good vibes for the Indian players!

[jayakris]

RamK drops his first set 67(3) against the 6th seed Oriol Roca Batalla (ESP,216) with no breaks by either player, and there is a silly back and forth going on between the players. I think Roca Batalla delays his serves till RamK stops moving, which annoys him, or whatever... (Roca Batalla says) "I knew you from 2010 in Barcelona, and you used to do the same thing" and all that. RamK argues.

Come on RamK, stop talking, and just play!!!

Update: He didn't. He just got worse. Lost it 67(3) 26. There were a couple of blatantly bad calls that went against him (does it mean that he is upsetting even the linesmen at his come court?)... but his inability to just move on, was hard to watch.

This was such a downer. After all the good work in the futures and then the win in Pakistan, I thought RamK must have matured at least a bit, and was looking forward to a good match today. Instead we got this clunker of an unwatchable match. Frankly, he looked worse in his game (what is with his totally giving up like this on any shot to his backhand side? He thinks he can win a point with those stupid slices?)... And his lack of focus, coupled with all the drama he creates, was worse than I have seen in the past. When will you just play the tennis that you are capable of, and stop this, RamK??? ... So frustrating.

[Sanjay]

I've given up on RamK. He should focus on his game. He is no Mac/Connors to behave like that. He should STFU and play and get better. Then talk when he gets into the Top 10. No one wants to see bad behavior from a Top 500 player. It's embarrassing

[sameerph]

So, we have Sumit and Mukund in second round.

At Chennai Challenger 100

[R2] (2) Sumit Nagal (IND,121) vs. Giovanni Fonio (ITA,270)

[R2] (WC) Sasi Kumar Mukund (IND,486) vs. Moez Echargui (SUI,292) - head to head 1-1

Sumit has his second round match tomorrow and Mukund's will be on Thursday.

Lots of our doubles pairs are in draw which begins tomorrow. Balaji-Begemann are top seeds while Niki-Rithvik are fourth seeds. Other pairs of Indian interest are RamK-Saketh, Arjun along with Taiwanese Hsu and 2 wild card pairings- SDPD-Nitin and Parikshit-Manish.

[jayakris]

I've given up on RamK. He should focus on his game. He is no Mac/Connors to behave like that. He should STFU and play and get better. Then talk when he gets into the Top 10. No one wants to see bad behavior from a Top 500 player. It's embarrassing

I have not given up on him (I think )... mostly because RamK is not a bad guy, and often looks like a guy with a good heart. In fact, even the things he does and says on court are not out of arrogance, or anger or anything. He screams and then whines... He is not calling anybody names (and only rarely uses bad words, I think)... He is often not questioning things all that vehemently, either. It is just childish ramblings from him. Not even that logical in how he says things. He sits down and apologizes to the ump today like, "I was only saying that the linesmen should focus. I wasn't questioning you. I have known you for 20 years, so why would I question you?" and stuff like that... Just rambling things, getting emotional and yelling "no, no, no, no, no". Here is another gem from him today - "That was 100% wide. 100%... I am not saying 90%, I am saying 100%" ... What is that? ... Then he has all the crazy mannerisms that upset the other guys. Actually many of the players also know that he is just an immature weirdo on these things but that he is not a nasty and cocky punk or anything. Most of them probably also knows that he is not doing things with a calculated plan to turn things to his advantage, like Agassi suddenly yelling that LP was "grunting too loud" - clearly as an on-court ploy. RamK is not doing such things. He is just an annoying player to play, and a real distraction (to him and the opponent) with how he goes about playing tennis, creating all the drama. No proper court etiquette - after all, just keeping your mouth shut is the first item in etiquette. That is all sad. It is like nobody has ever been a real Guru to him, to help him mature. It is sad.

[kishash]

Sumit wins the first set in his second round against Fonio 7-5. Not a cakewalk so far.

[kishash]

Now Sumit 3-0 with a break in the second set

Now 5-2

And wins 7-5, 6-2!