ITF Junior Circuit, Jan 06 (Chandigarh/Delhi/Kolkata)

[jayakris]

No, this is a grade-3, like the Chandigarh event. Only the Delhi event is grade-2.

Actually, what I am not too happy about is that some of our top u14 players did not play these three ITFs .. Two in particular are the Maharashtra girls, Rushmi Teltumbde and Ashwarya Shrivastava, ranked 3 and 4 in the 14s - both with early 1992 birthdays. Not sure why they did not think of playing these three home ITFs. The third one (also from the Maharastra Stable, which is way ahead of everybody else right now in the u15 levels), Adnya Naik, of identical age, had won the Asian 14s last month and travelled to the Australian nationals last week (she did well there upsetting a seed and reaching the QF with three wins, as I posted in the domestic u14 thread in the players section) ..

As you can see, I am DESPERATE to see some girls emerge. It is getting to be extremely worrisome that the pipeline has been totally running dry for 3+ years. I keep repeating this, but I am not sure if anybody is doing anything about nudging and pushing our girls' parents to get going early into the international circuit and learning about what they need to work on, to deal with the international circuit by the time they are 17. Age 15 is too late to start on the ITF tour on the girls' side, though it is fine on the boys' side.

I darly hope that Poojashree (15.5 yrs) and Sweta Solanki (14.8), the top two in our domestic u16 rankings will do something this week at Kolkata (both have advanced to R2). I have not yet given up on GK Shwetha, though she has fallen off from the levels she had shown earlier. She too won yesterday. Hope one of these three make a move this week.

Yuki Bhambri, turning 14 this July, couldn't do much in the two ITFs he just played - and he got no help from the draws either. He has a lot of time though.

Mansingh Athare, Sudanwa Sitaram, Ronak Manuja and Sameer Paranjpe, all 14 and under (and among the 6 Maharashtra players ranked in the top 9 in the 14s!) were all in Australia at the same Australian Nationals last week - as they all finished in the Asian top-8 last month. So they too missed the ITFs. Again, it is not a huge issue on the boys' side. Mid to late 15 is very much fine to start on the ITF tour for boys.

Will somebody do something about our junior girls' tennis???? ...

Jay

[sameerph]

Yes Jay , the situation on girls side does not look good but even on boys side there seems to be a big gap after current top players . Top 4 /5 top ranked players ( Jeevan. Sanam, Rupesh , Sumit Prakash Gupta ) will all be completing 18 years this year. So, unless somebody below with lower age breaks out in rankings by the end of this year we will end up with no repesentative in junior grand slams next year.

But as you rightly said the girls have to start a bit earlier as many of the girls in the 16's / 17's are already playing on senior tour. There is a lot more opprtunity also for asians on womens tour as can be evident from the fact there as many as 18 asian players playing currently in Ausralian open main draw . May be Sania's success will inspire some the younger girls to emerge.

But, overall both on boys & girls side we have quite a good talent pool in 17-21 age but a not much at a next age level.

[sameerph]

Tejaswi Rao win his maiden title :-

http://www.hindu.com/2006/01/22/stories ... 941600.htm

So, Indian boys winning the title in all 3 weeks. Sanaa winning in first 2 weeks . Only 3rd week girls title going to a non-Indian.