Misc. Results for Indians abroad...

[sameerph]

In China Satellites - Leg 3 :

[Q1] Divij SHARAN (IND) bye
[Q1] Kamala KANNAN (IND) bye

[Q2] Divij SHARAN (IND) defeated Yu CHANG (CHN) 62 75
[Q2] Kamala KANNAN (IND) defeated Sung-Hyuk YU (KOR) 63 75

[Q3] Divij SHARAN (IND) defeated Chen-Yu WU (CHN) 63 62
[Q3] Jorge RANGEL (PUR) defeated Kamala KANNAN (IND) 63 63

So, Finally some wins for Divij in china although in qualifying rounds. Let's hope he wins some mathes in main draw.

[jayakris]

OK, pull out a win or two and make the masters, Divij! Jay

[gvhvhg]

Go Divij!

[genius]

who is Iciri Rai BTW? Never heard of her.but suddenly i am forwarded a news item saying she is going to bob bett fo training!

[jayakris]

Never heard of Iciri Rai? .. Surprised. She has been around. Was coached earlier (may be still) at CGK Bhupathio's tennis academy in Bangalore. Big serve and all, but could nver really break through. About 18 now I think - and I don't think she is considered a huge prospect or anything. She was at Bob Brett's earlier last year for a couple of weeks (under a bit of sinancing from Karnataka sources, if I am not mistaken). I don't think that made much of a difference, based on her results. She has been playing regularly in the domestic $10K events and all that. Not a bad player, and probably still has potential if she can get over mental and gametime inconsistencies (just my feeling - not sure). Best of luck to Iciri.

Jay

[genius]

I have never been a consistently close follower of the indian tennis circuit.Just take casual glances on and off in search of some perenially elusive talent which will bring back a top 50 player back,if not a champion.I did not get my wish until i heard of sania in 2002!

[jayakris]

Don't feel bad. Not too many know of Iciri Rai, except the regular posters here. I thought you might have seen here name here over the last few months you have been here. But come to think of it, it's been while since we saw any noteworthy results from Iciri.

I remember a discussion last year in this forum when we complained about her not getting a wildcard to the Mumbai challenger (later we found that it was because she made the main draw in the last minute - something like that) ..

Jay

[genius]

Not feeling bad or anything! Infact the news item mentioned Iciri is going to univ of south florida(is it orlando?) on a tennis scholarship and hence is well placed right now to either kickstart her career or just disappear.It looks like she was close to quitting the game because of lack of resources before former karnataka CM krishna bailed her out.

[jayakris]

She hasnot played any pro events since december last year, actually ..

If she is going to Orlando, it would be the university of Central Florida .. Where did you see the news item?

Jay

[genius]

Iciri going to st.petersburg

She is going to south florida,st.petersburg.

[gvhvhg]

Yeah I read that in TOI when I was in Bangalore and hadn't had a chance to post about it at the time. She's going to USF to play under Gigi Fernandez and plans to play pro tourneys during her vacations. Go Iciri!

[jayakris]

Gigi actually resigned as the head coach of South Florida last month, but will apparently stay in some coaching capacity. It seems Gigi was there because she needed to get a college degree too (that is funny for the coach to be getting a degree too -- many big universities would not allow acoach without a degree). Now she has quit on personal reasons, so I don't know if she would be coaching much.

I don't think Gigi had a huge amount of success in three years as head coach though she has done a fair job, bringing the program right around to a #50 rank. Hardly any Americans in the roster (tough to attract them to a small school like South Florida) but Gigi has done some recruiting internationally. Neyssa Etienne, a former top-400 WTA player and a junior top-30 player 4 years back joined this January (at age 21!).

They are not in a great conference in NCAA, but Conference USA is OK with 3 top-25 ranked teams. The only problem I find is that Iciri may not get to play #1 any time soon unless she beats out Etienne and at least another player for that. That means she may not get to play a whole lot of top-100 ranked players all that soon, to improve. That may be OK, as I am not sure if she is immediately ready for the top-100 type players anyway. She will have some decent players to hit with in her team. I think Etienne will be a top-30 type players in the upcoming year.

Best of luck to Iciri.

Jay

[sameerph]

In China Satellites - Leg 3 :

1st Round

Patrice ATIAS (FRA) defeated Divij SHARAN (IND) 64 61
Amir WEINTRAUB (ISR) defeated Jaco MATHEW (IND) 36 62 64
Ashutosh SINGH (IND) defeated Benoit BOTTERO (FRA) 64 63

So, only Ashutosh advancing to round 2.

In doubles,
MATHEW (IND) / SINGH (IND) defeated LI (CHN) / WANG (CHN) 62 36 76(1)
SHARAN (IND) / TO (AUS) defeated LI (CHN) / WANG (CHN) 26 60 64
BRIAUD (USA) / KANNAN (IND) defeated ATIAS (FRA) / BENNETEAU (FRA) 64 64

[gvhvhg]

Go Ashutosh!

[sameerph]

[R2 ] Xin-Yuan YU (CHN)(2) defeated Ashutosh SINGH (IND) 76(5) 63

Good fight by Ashutosh against 2nd seed.

In doubles :-

Quarter finals

MATHEW (IND) / SINGH (IND) defeated LIANG (CHN) / YANG (CHN) 67(5) 62 61

SHARAN (IND) / TO (AUS) defeated BARBASH (ISR) / HADASH (ISR) 60 61

SUGIYAMA (JPN) / THOMPSON (NZL) defeated BRIAUD (USA) / KANNAN (IND) 57 61 76(4)