ITF Junior Circuit India 2025
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- PKBasu
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Re: ITF Junior Circuit India 2025
Congratulations to Arjun Rathi! To come back from a bad road accident last February, and win a J200 title 11 months later is a terrific achievement. And at #95 now, he will be able to play at least the junior Slam qualifiers the rest of this year. Ideally, he wins one or two more J200 or J300 titles, and actually gets to play the junior Slam main draws!
- jayakris
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Re: ITF Junior Circuit India 2025
^^^ Don't give PKB ideas, now! 
But Arjun has been a great story. If he plays a few more junior events, he is sure to go to at least top-60 if not higher. So nice to see that there are four 17-year-old Indians in the top-100 juniors now (Rethin, Kriish, Hitesh, Arjun). Manas is of course at least a top-30 quality junior had he been playing juniors too, so that is 5 top-100 quality juniors we are bringing out this year. 17 yr old Varun Verma is at around #150... Among 16 year olds, Arnav Paparkar (now #114) and Samarth Sahita (#212) should make top-100 this year or next year too. That is a good stream of youngsters to add to Aryan, Yuvan, Dev, Chirag etc from the past 4 years.
Hope one or two of them will make the top-100 in the seniors too in the coming years. Typically you need to get to at least the junior top-40 (preferably top-20) to have high hopes for a later top-100. But Somdev only made #40, and Sumit #23, and they went to top-100 later. Aryan (#39 junior CH), Yuvan (#38), Rethin (#37), Kriish (#33) are the ones who meet that criterion for top-100 potential. I will count Manas also as top-40 in quality. I think Arjun Rathi is capable of going to the top-40 by later this year to make it 6 possibilities from the latest 3 years for pro top-100 later. Only 2 or 3 will make it, but that itself would be terrific. We have never had more than 1 or 2 in the top-100.
I can't remember any Indian since Sumit in 2015 making the junior top-40, till Aryan and Yuvan in 2022. I am probably forgetting somebody...
Plus, Arnav, Samarth, Hruthik, Tavish, etc are waiting in the wings for junior top-100 and hopefully top-40. I hope they will continue the recent momentum in the junior circuit.

But Arjun has been a great story. If he plays a few more junior events, he is sure to go to at least top-60 if not higher. So nice to see that there are four 17-year-old Indians in the top-100 juniors now (Rethin, Kriish, Hitesh, Arjun). Manas is of course at least a top-30 quality junior had he been playing juniors too, so that is 5 top-100 quality juniors we are bringing out this year. 17 yr old Varun Verma is at around #150... Among 16 year olds, Arnav Paparkar (now #114) and Samarth Sahita (#212) should make top-100 this year or next year too. That is a good stream of youngsters to add to Aryan, Yuvan, Dev, Chirag etc from the past 4 years.
Hope one or two of them will make the top-100 in the seniors too in the coming years. Typically you need to get to at least the junior top-40 (preferably top-20) to have high hopes for a later top-100. But Somdev only made #40, and Sumit #23, and they went to top-100 later. Aryan (#39 junior CH), Yuvan (#38), Rethin (#37), Kriish (#33) are the ones who meet that criterion for top-100 potential. I will count Manas also as top-40 in quality. I think Arjun Rathi is capable of going to the top-40 by later this year to make it 6 possibilities from the latest 3 years for pro top-100 later. Only 2 or 3 will make it, but that itself would be terrific. We have never had more than 1 or 2 in the top-100.
I can't remember any Indian since Sumit in 2015 making the junior top-40, till Aryan and Yuvan in 2022. I am probably forgetting somebody...
Plus, Arnav, Samarth, Hruthik, Tavish, etc are waiting in the wings for junior top-100 and hopefully top-40. I hope they will continue the recent momentum in the junior circuit.
- PKBasu
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Re: ITF Junior Circuit India 2025
No. There isn't one for Kriish Tyagi yet, despite the latter being ranked 34 among the world's juniors. There is one for Rethin Pranav, the national men's champion at 17 (the same age as Kriish and Arjun).
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Re: ITF Junior Circuit India 2025
Yes, this year's crop of junior boys is heartwarming. Somewhat like the time when (on the girls' side) we had Sania Mirza, Isha Lakhani and Ankita Bhambri -- with the slightly younger Sanaa Bhambri and Tara Iyer making up the next crop.
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Re: ITF Junior Circuit India 2025
I went thru our junior circuit abroad thread and the only one who came close to meeting that criteria of junior top-40 between 2015 to 2022 was Sid Banthia was was #41 in Jan 2018. But, I am not quite sure if top 40 particularly if it is only at the start of the year can be considered as criteria for potential top 100. What Sumit showed winning a grade 1 junior title in Europe and reaching top 25 was a sure indicator. I am not sure why Somdev was only top 40 in juniors.
Another criteria we can use is what they achieve in pros by 18th or 19th birthday for those who do not continue playing too much juniors in last year of juniors and those who do not go to college. We can take Sumit or Somdev in that category. Sumit was ranked outside 1000 on his 18th birthday but went into top 400 by his 19th birthday. RamK who came very close top 100 ( CH 111), was also outside 1000 by 18th birthday and made top 700 by 19th birthday.
Using same criteria, Aryan was ranked in top 600 by age 19, Manas is close to 1000 just after 17th birthday. Both look to have top 100 potential by that criteria. Yuvan is still stuck in 900's after 19. Rethin and Kriish too early to say because they have not played enough pro tennis. Lets see if they get to top 25 in juniors later this year to meet the juniors criteria.
So, applying this stricter criteria, we have only Manas and Aryan as top 100 potential out of these. Others we can determine in a year or so. But, yes at least we are now getting juniors who are giving us this hope.
- jayakris
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Re: ITF Junior Circuit India 2025
In fact Sid B was the one player whom I later remembered. But he did not have a great final year, so the top-40 at the start of the year was a bit of an exaggerated ranking. He was mostly a top-60 or 75 type junior. With a small frame and all, it was rather clear that he was going to be limited. But in doubles, he can be pretty good if he focuses on just that. He is talented.sameerph wrote: ↑Mon Jan 27, 2025 5:31 pm I went thru our junior circuit abroad thread and the only one who came close to meeting that criteria of junior top-40 between 2015 to 2022 was Sid Banthia was was #41 in Jan 2018. But, I am not quite sure if top 40 particularly if it is only at the start of the year can be considered as criteria for potential top 100. What Sumit showed winning a grade 1 junior title in Europe and reaching top 25 was a sure indicator. I am not sure why Somdev was only top 40 in juniors.
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Re: ITF Junior Circuit India 2025
Yes, SidB went to a good university - Wake Forest, same one where DKS is there but SidB always played #5 or #6 for them in singles, so clearly did not get too many quality singles matches there. His coach there probably saw that his potential is in doubles. In doubles, he did reach QF at NCAA championships. So, his best chances are in doubles on pro tour.
I have same concern for Rushil Khosla. He plays for Cornell university and have seen their match results and he does not get to play singles and plays #1 doubles and is ranked there. He is only in his freshman year, so still early days but maybe he is also going the doubles path.
I have same concern for Rushil Khosla. He plays for Cornell university and have seen their match results and he does not get to play singles and plays #1 doubles and is ranked there. He is only in his freshman year, so still early days but maybe he is also going the doubles path.
- PKBasu
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Re: ITF Junior Circuit India 2025
Somdev was a late bloomer in the juniors. He really started making his mark only towards the end of his last year as a junior (the year he was turning 18), winning a clutch of junior tournaments, including the Asian (closed) championship singles title. And soon after, if I remember right, he also won a Futures. That is what made him an exciting prospect as he headed to college (UVa), where he blossomed even more.
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Re: ITF Junior Circuit India 2025
Arjun Rathi is at 108 now. I expect him to fall down to around 115 by the end of Feb if he is not playing any tourneys.
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Re: ITF Junior Circuit India 2025
Where did you see 108 ? ITF junior ranking page is not loading at all. ITF site has gone from bad to worse.
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Re: ITF Junior Circuit India 2025
Oh, thanks. I am surprised in that case. So, about 12-13 players jumped above where we expected Arjun to be based on his points tally.
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Re: ITF Junior Circuit India 2025
The junior rankings rapidly switch below 100 rank as it's a best of 6 tourneys .. so inactive players can fall back by around 10 ranks per month average. So by French Open cutoff time, likely Arjun ranking will go to 130s if there no new net addition of points.
Was that in your calculations for Grand Slam spot confirmation, Sameer?
Was that in your calculations for Grand Slam spot confirmation, Sameer?
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Re: ITF Junior Circuit India 2025
No, I did not and what I had noticed that it does not go down that much. Maybe I was wrong. But, Arjun has not been inactive player, he played last week. For Maaya what I calculated when she won J300, she did end up 3-4 spots down. But, in case of Arjun it is about 12-13 points down. Maybe because of Australian open points for other players. I am currently not able to view full rankings to see who are the players who went above him.