Indian Origin Players Thread

[PKBasu]

Astra Sharma qualified into the AO main draw, and then beat wildcard Priscilla Hon (AUS, 161) in R1 of the main draw. She faces Maria Sakkari (GRE, 41) in the second round.

Astra (really a strange name for a woman, meaning “weapon”) is now at a career high of 158 in the live rankings (up from a previous-high of 225).

[Atithee]

Astra could also come from star in Spanish like Tara in Hindi.

[prasen9]

And Tara is her sister ...

[PKBasu]

She lost 16 46 to the Greek player, and apparently the crowd (dominated by Greek-Australians) was thoroughly behind her opponent, which must have been a bit of a shock to the Australian player (who happens to be NRI).

[Rajiv]

She doesn't seem to be 100% Indian , as her mother it seems is a Singaporean Chinese

[VReddy]

Parents from Singaore - Mother Susan is East Asian, Father Dev Sharma has Indian roots. Brother Ashwin plays on the Transition Tour had lost to Siddharth Vishwakarma recently. Ashwin also doubles up as her hitting partner occasionally.

After her AO run, she is #160 in the live rankings. She does not have any points to defend till mid-May as she turned Pro only then. Hopefully she can get into the top-140 by then.

She received a doubles wildcard as well and is up at 11 AM local time for the Doubles R1.

[sameerph]

Astra Sharma has made it to the final of WTA 125K in Bogota,Colombia. She has had wins over current top 100 player Magda Linnete and former top 5 player Sara Errani to make it to the final where she will meet 76th ranked Aminda Animosova.

[jayakris]

18 year old Govind Nanda (USA,550) just got his first challenger level win, at the Houston challenger first round easily, 64 63 over a wildcard ranked #730. He is set to face the 15th seed Redlicki (USA,333) in the round of 32. Govind is easily the best u19 player out there, of Indian origin.

[PKBasu]

50%-NRI Astra Sharma of Australia had a quiet second half of the year, after her heroics at the AO and making the final of the $125K Bogota WTA event in April. She reached a career-high of 85 in June this year, but is now ranked 109.

[PKBasu]

We have the first Child of TennisIndia (or sports-india.com) competing at the international junior level, and winning matches. Introducing ROHAN BELDAY, son of our very own Gautam Belday (gbelday)! At the Junior Orange Bowl, here are Rohan's results:

[R1] Rohan Belday d. Ruslan Serazhetdinov (RUS) 62 62
[R2-last 32] Rohan Belday l. Yu Maeda (JPN) 16 26

[jaydeep]

Congrats Gautam! Give our best wishes to Rohan.

[gbelday]

We have the first Child of TennisIndia (or sports-india.com) competing at the international junior level, and winning matches. Introducing ROHAN BELDAY, son of our very own Gautam Belday (gbelday)! At the Junior Orange Bowl, here are Rohan's results:

That’s quite an honor, PKB. Thank you for the post!! It was a very good experience for Rohan. He won four rounds in the qualifiers to make it to the main draw. Quite happy with how he competed.

Some of these 14 year olds play at a very high level (UTR 12 and above which is equivalent to the level at which some US college D1 players are at). Rohan has one more chance next year to compete in the 14s and we are working on strengthening him up more.

It was good to meet some of the kids/parents from India at this tournament - Manas Dhamne, Rushil Khosla, Ika Raju, Vaibhav Krishna, Pari Singh etc. I had some good conversations with them, exchanged ideas and resources and am hoping to keep in touch along this journey.

[suresh]

@Gautam All the best to Rohan.

[jayakris]

This is so fantastic. Congrats to Rohan for that nice win! Looking forward to his exploits in the years to come.

[sameerph]

Congrats to Rohan and Guatam for this excellent run.

Another Indian origin kid, Nishesh Basavareddy has reached the final in the Orange Bowl under 14's. Nishesh appears a really talented kid . He has already won a grade 5 title at under 18's and reached a final in a grade 4.