Grass court tournaments 2021

[vparam]

McNally pulled out of the French Open doubles with Gauff so she may not be 100% fit against Ankita. You may all remember Venus filling in at the last minute for McNally in doubles. Hopefully Ankita can make her work for each and every point.

[jaydeep]

A good start for the grass court season for Ankita

[PKBasu]

In the doubles, Ankita (partnering Julia Wachaczyk, ranked 96 in doubles) plays Samantha Murray-Sharan/Naiktha Bains. Both Samantha and Naiktha lost in Q1 of singles.

[sameerph]

RamK had a lot of trouble adjusting from clay to grass courts and had to fight all the way thru 3 sets and winning 2 tie breaks to come thru.

At Nottingham Challenger 125, Great Britain (Grass)

[Q1] (4) Ramkumar Ramanathan (IND,216) d. (WC) Anton Matusevic (GBR,588) 26 76(1) 76(5)

Next,

[Q2] (4) Ramkumar Ramanathan (IND,216) vs. (5) Marius Copil (ROM,228)

[jayakris]

Phew... That would've been a troublesome loss. Glad that RamK came through.

[jayakris]

Ankita wins the match 7-6 6-4 Katie Volynets, up next!

Yes, of course there is only 1 qualifying round and Ankita has aleady qualified for the main draw. In main draw -
[R1] (Q) (5) Ankita Raina (IND,183) vs. Catherine Mcnally (USA,110)
Mcneelly had beaten Ankita easily in February in Australia. Lets see if Ankita can turn around this result.

Katie, Volyball nets, Catherine, McNally, McNeely, McDonald mcNuggets... Hell, can you all make up your mind?

[PKBasu]

Brits are always very well-prepared in the early stages of the grass season. Good to see Ramkumar come through in a couple of tiebreakers, after the bad loss in the first set. The next round should be a bit easier -- it's not a Brit

[Rajiv]

This was a very good win for Ram, considering the fact that he arrived less than 24hrs before the start of his match and with Zero Grass court play, all he had was just couple hrs of practice hitting to prepare himself for his first match on grass this year after playing months on clay .

Even his Grass Shoes couldn't arrive in time and all what he had were shoes covered with Red Dirt, but luckily the Club store at the Tournament venue, helped him overcome this problem.
Whatever the outcome, the next match and the doubles match should provide valuable practice on Grass, for which he had no time to prepare himself.

[prasen9]

Romanians usually have a pretty big serve. This guy possibly has one too. But, I looked at his record and he has hardly played on grass. Made the 3R of the French in 2019. Go RaRa!

[sameerph]

This guy Copil is 6 ft 4 inches tall. So, should be a big server. He was ranked as high as #56 in 2019. He also did beat a Brit James Ward in Q1. RamK will have to play better than yesterday to get ahead of him.

RamK's match second on court around 5-5.30 pm India time. Ankita'a match should be around 6.30/ 7 pm India time.

[PKBasu]

Marius Copil has one of the biggest serves in the game. He has done well on indoor courts (beating Sasha Zverev and Cilic on the way to the final of the Swiss Indoors in 2018) and once made the QF at s'Hertogenbosch. Although he has never made it past the first round at Wimbledon, he is certainly a good grass (and indoor-court) player. (I was being facetious with my previous comment, hence the smiley ). Ramkumar will face a stern grass test in Q2. Remember though that Ramkumar has made the final of an ATP tournament on grass (and beaten Thiem at another), so he is one of the best grass-courters in the world as well (and by that I mean proper traditional grass, not the slowed-down variety at Wimbledon).

[sameerph]

If Copil is such a big server, it will be difficult for RamK to break him. With his sliced and blocked return, return of serve is not RamK's strength. He will have to rely on serving well himself and rely to take it to tiebreaks where he has been very good this year ( 8-0 so far).

[Dinesh]

Basilashvili and Sharan are playing together at the Stuttgart ATP 250 that starts from tomorrow. Hope the grass season is a successful one for Divij!

[sameerph]

Copil proved too strong for RamK.

At Nottingham Challenger 125, Great Britain (Grass)

[Q2] (4) Ramkumar Ramanathan (IND,216) l. (5) Marius Copil (ROM,228) 26 46

Lets see if any lucky loser spot opens up.

[Rajiv]

Expected result, considering he(Ram) was playing with hardly any grass court practice against an experienced player.
Raised bit of a hope in S2, when he started to hold his serve consistently and even had the Romanian love 40, but couldn't capitalise on it and let slip away the advantage and eventually the match, Anyway these matches and grass court practice during the week will hopefully prepare him better, for the next 2 weeks of tournament play.