Sahaja Yamalapalli thread

[SaniaFan]

First set to Sahaja 6-4

[jayakris]

She was up 2-0, then lost serve twice to be down 3-4, but then broke twice to win it. Some good shots in that stretch, especially at the 3-4 BP when she calmly stayed at the net and hit three correct shots in a row. I have almost never seen her hit three shots correctly at the net.

A couple of loose shots to start the second set. Down a break, 64 02... Breaks back, inducing Arseneault into some mistakes. 2-2

Intelligent tennis again from Sahaja. Not trying to whack the ball like she can, but hitting a lot of high-arc balls and buying time to stay in the rallies, to induce mistakes from the opponent. Also buying time to get to short ball and hit some slices and all those shots she is normally not to adept at. Quite a different game than she plays on hard courts. But this is still a close match, as expected. 64 32 on serve

A crisp move up to the net and a firm back hand volley winner for a BP. Nice! Arseneault nets a shot. Up a break, 64 42... Broken, due to two reat backhand down the line shots from AA (and that is a shot I hope Sahaja would hit more, and get more comfortable with; she would win a lot more easily if she starts hitting that shot).. Broken to 4-3... But she breaks immediately at love for 64 53.'

Showed some nerves with two DFs while servin for the match including one at the first match pt at AD out, but didn't choke and went for some ood shots too including a nice forehand crosscourt. Converted the second MP for a very nice win over a top-500/600 quality player in Ariana Arseneau (US college top-75)... 64 63

[R2] (1) Sahaja Yamalapalli (IND,303) d. (Q) Ariana Arseneault (CAN,1270), 64 63

[Dinesh]

A career high #302 ranking for the new Indian #1. Hopefully she will win more rounds this week that will help her break into the top-300 when the points get added.

QF opponent will be an unseeded Colombian player.

[jayakris]

Dinesh, actually that CH of #302 is for next week. She will crack top-300 on Sep 16th when these 8 points go in (she has 5 more falling off on Sep 16 from last year's Thailand event). Should be just inside 300 on Sep 16th, but we will know for sure only next week.

If she beats the Colombian that wins the "coffee princess cup" going on right now, Sahaja will surely be in the top-300 on Sep 16. Almost sure now itself.

[Atithee]

I’m watching the two Colombians play and they both look like club level players. Sahaja match ahead, I hope for SY.

[jayakris]

Often when I watch Sahaja play, I am fascinated by how her game seems to slowly improve. Nothing too drastic to talk about, but she seems to instinctively learn, at her own pace, from her matches. A better volley here or there, or better location of some shots, or the arc of the ball, or the speed taken off the ball... things seem to slowly change. She still makes mistakes and is still a work in progress, but she does not do too many dumb things, and generally seems not to continue making any dumb mistake. This was on red clay after a long time, but she managed to sorta adjusted things, to play two relatively clean matches. This was a player she lost to, 26 26 three years ago. Sometimes I think Sahaja does not get the credit for the self-improvement she has made. Quite impressive how she has done it over the last couple of years, coming out of literally nowhere.

[jayakris]

I’m watching the two Colombians play and they both look like club level players. Sahaja match ahead, I hope for SY.

Looks like the qualifier won in a 2 hr 50 min three-setter... Hope she runs out of gas tomorrow

[QF] (1) Sahaja Yamalapalli (IND,303) vs (Q) Valentina Mediorreal Arias (COL,1204), Friday

[jayakris]

This 17 year old Valentina Mediorreal Arias seems to be a talented player. She was in the junior top-65 this year, and had won the South American regional junior championship (J300) title this year. No big results in Europe or anything in the juniors though, but she has played a lot of clay events. I would think that she would give Sahaja some good resistance.

[jayakris]

Sahaja was up 3-1 with a break but has played quite poorly from then on... 4-4, 0-30 in the first set. But steadied herself a bit, saved a BP and went 11-4 in points to close out the set. 64 00... Was hitting a lot of moonballs to Valentina, but only to mixed success. Broken at 30-40 to 64 01 but broke back with an 8 point run. Still a bit of a dogfight against a talented junior who has lived all her life on clay, and has some strong shots. 64 32 on serve now. Sahaja has moved away from the moonballs now, I think. At 4-4, Valentina was hitting the felt off the ball, and the key point was at 30-15 when Sahaja actually did a bit of a clay slide and hit a cross court retrieval shot on a sure winner from behind the right corner on a ball that hardly bounced, to avoid trouble. Then it was home free, as Sahaja broke Mediorreal Arias at 15-40 and took the match. She was certainly given serious resistance by the decently-talented teenager. 64 64

At the ITF W35 in Punta Cana, Dominican Republic (Clay):

[QF] (1) Sahaja Yamalapalli (IND,303) d. (Q) Valentina Mediorreal Arias (COL,1204), 64 64

[Dinesh]

Sahaja wins 6-4 6-4. The local player wasn’t an easy opponent.

In the semis, Sahaja will be up against NCAA #2 Dasha Vidmanova, who has beaten some seasoned ITF players this year on clay. I will be surprised if SY wins a set against her but as always, hope she proves me wrong.

[jayakris]

Yeah, I had doubted if there was anybody in the whole player field at Punta Cana who could stop Vidmanova from winning the title. Maybe Sahaja can, if she raises her game. We have sometimes seen that Sahaja's game can go up a notch depending on the opponent and she is able to play at a higher level. Hope it can happen. But the SF will be a VERY tough match.

[jayakris]

[SF] (1) Sahaja Yamalapalli (IND,303) vs Darja Vidmanova (CZE,594)

Dasha, as she actually goes by in the US college circuit, was a junior #21 three years ago. She is ranked #2 in NCAA tennis, and is at the Auburn University. Has serious game. Let us see how Sahaja holds up. She has shown that she can beat college top-10 players in the recent past.

14 points from this SF. She has 5 falling off on Sep 16th, but should be ranked around #295 then with 214 points. I think she only has some 20 pts to defend till late December now, and so should move up a bit further in the next 3 months.

[sameerph]

And will hopefully gain enough points to get into AO 2025 qualies. Maybe we can do calculations after this week is done or after 2 weeks here in Dominican Republic.

[jayakris]

^^^ After you and I looked into it earlier, I had pointed out to Sahaja a few weeks ago that she had a chance to make the AO qualies if she picked up some 135 points by the end of the year, as her 50 Solapur title points will fall off only after the AO qualies deadline. The 135 included the 49 she had to defend. I think she was not thinking of that at that point, but she is aware of it now and I am sure will try for it. Since then she has defended 30 points that fell off and picked up a few extra points now. Still needs about 100 points (as only 19 more points fall off from now on). Again, it is not easy to make 100 points in 3 months, but she definitely has a chance to at least try to make the current total of 214 to go up to around 290-300 points and get near #240 in ranking.

[jayakris]

Sahaja vs Vidmanova - ITF's live stream ...