Indians in US College Tennis

[prasen9]

Natasha Subhash was ranked #9 this year. Here is a nice article on her. Here is her year in a nutshell: Subhash

[Dinesh]

Nandini Das, who recently graduated from Florida State University has been nominated for NCAA woman of the year. The winner will be selected and announced later this Fall.

[Kumar]

Natasha Subhash was ranked #9 this year. Here is a nice article on her. Here is her year in a nutshell: Subhash

Actually, I had very high hopes for Natasha. In 2018, she seemed to be the rising star, now she is just one of the also rans. Geography has changed, but the career path of Indian origin kids have not changed.

When Subhash was four years old, her father, a first-generation immigrant from India, noticed his daughter had unnaturally good hand-eye coordination. He had her pick up a tennis racket, and she hasn’t put it down since, from playing in tournaments from the time she was six years old to traveling the world to play by high school

The above quote actually sums up the problem with Indian origin kids here. They don’t play other sports and focus too much on single sports. The big benefit is that they are fundamentally strong. The challenge is the risk of burning yourself out.

[prasen9]

Here is an article on what you are saying: When is it too early for single sport specialization? In some sense, I was lucky in that my daughter played different sports because she did not have the eye towards any single one and eventually landed up doing quite well (in my eyes) in one, which she picked sort of by accident.

[knarayen]

Too early specialization could be one problem - not developing a winning strategy for finishing off points/games/sets/matches when ahead is another. The latter will require at least one big weapon in your game. This is something that I have noticed consistently in every Indian-origin player, starting from Ramanathan Krishnan to the present day. I had some hopes for RamK and his great serving, but that too is a big disappointment because the mental strength/discipline is lacking. I don't know...this is something of a curse when you see so much talent that doesnt go all the way into the Majors.

Ramanathan Krishnan had great mental strength and skills and he used them to compensate for the lack of a big physical weapon. Same with his son Ramesh. Vijay had the potential to surpass but couldnt for very similar reasons - no big physical weapon. Today's game has a lot of physicality in it and that does not favor Indians, hence our struggles continue.

Prof

[jayakris]

I was just checking on what happened to Nandini Das. She graduated this year from Flordia State. Seems like she is also done with tennis. Has t aken up a job with IMG in Florida, as per her LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/nandini-das/

What happened to Akanksha Bhan at Columbia? She had a good record in college tennis and was somewhere in the #60 to #120 range of NCAA ranking whenever I checked. She also must have graduated this year. Sufyan, do you know? You had interviewed her when she started there...

[ornatebrute]

Yah, she graduated with 3.89 GPA and is committed to Ohio State for the next two seasons where she will be pursuing double Masters in Applied Economics and Finance.

[jayakris]

^^^ Thanks! I was suspecting that because Google search showed an instagram line (though the page doesn't seem to be there anymore) where she had it as Columbia '22 and Ohio State '24 ... Best of luck to her and congratulations on the academic achievements, but I guess that means one more good player is gone from tennis ... Who do we really have on the women's side to look forward to with some hope for a WTA top-200 type career? Very few, I guess. Karman or bust, at this point.

[ornatebrute]

Sahaja, Vaidehi, Rashmika if they plan properly definitely have top 350 potential.
Losing hopes on Pranjala, Zeel, Jennifer, Humera getting there.
Seems too late for Riya aand Sowjanya now.

[jayakris]

^^^ Mostly the names I had sorta had in mind too. But not seeing somebody for a top-200 yet to join Karman (who herself needs to get back)

Humera just qualified into the W25 in Aldershot, GBR, with a decent win in the qualies (she joins Ankita in the main draw). She is still only 21, so maybe too early to give up. The other five, yeah, losing hope on top-250.

[jayakris]

Aditya Balsekar from Mumbai who had won a J5 in Dhaka in late 2019 has been in a lower-ranked tennis program at Radford University for the last 2 years. He is still 19, and has been doing well in the M15 at Cancun, where he qualified, upset the 8th seed and has reached the QF. See the details in ourmisc.players thread. Looks like the guy has improved! maybe a late bloomer? He has the right tennis height/build etc (6 ft 1 tall).

[sameerph]

Looking at the latest ITA rankings, the only Indian who seems to be ranked is Dakshineshwar Suresh ( Wake Forest university) who is ranked #53 in singles rankings. Indian Americans who are in rankings are Govind Nanda who is #29, Samir Banarjee who is #32 and Nishesh Basavreddy who is surprisingly only # 51.

Suresh is ranked as high as #3 in doubles though.

There does not seem to be any Indian player ranked in womens rankings.

[Omkara]

US college route is no longer the preferred route to professional tennis. Atleast for Indian tennis. Indian tennis is confused, lacks direction. Its back to each his own

[arjun2761]

Looking at the latest ITA rankings, the only Indian who seems to be ranked is Dakshineshwar Suresh ( Wake Forest university) who is ranked #53 in singles rankings. Indian Americans who are in rankings are Govind Nanda who is #29, Samir Banarjee who is #32 and Nishesh Basavreddy who is surprisingly only # 51.

Suresh is ranked as high as #3 in doubles though.

There does not seem to be any Indian player ranked in womens rankings.

Nishesh may well be the best player in college tennis. His low ranking is because he has only played 3 matches while the top guys have played 15-20 matches. My guess is his ranking will keep moving up as he plays more matches.

[jayakris]

Looking at the latest ITA rankings, the only Indian who seems to be ranked is Dakshineshwar Suresh ( Wake Forest university) who is ranked #53 in singles rankings.

Looks like he is going by D Suresh Ekambaram at Wake Forest. He was 3-4 years late in joining a college, but could be the best Indian prospect to come out from college since Somdev. Good that he moved from the small college (Gwinnet College, Georgia) where he went undefeated for his freshman year, to a proper top program. Wake Forest is currently ranked #3 in college tennis, which is terrific. Waiting for him to leave college after the 24-25 season, if not after this year itself not wait to graduate after two more seasons following the current 2023-24 season (as he is 23 yrs in age already).