Weekly Roundup 2020.03.02: Indian Women create history in Fed Cup,Leander/Rohan shine in Davis Cup loss, good run by Zeel Desai in Egypt

Fed Cup

-Indian Women made history when they qualified for the world group play-offs for the first time in history, by finishing in top 2 of the Asia Oceania Group 1 qualfiers played in Dubai this week. Indian women won 4 of their 5 matches, most of them in close fights.

Photo Credits: Krishnakumar/ Maurizio/Timmy Thomas

These are their results this week –

India l China 0-3
[R1] Rutuja Bhosale (IND,433) l Shuai Zhang (CHN,35) 46 26
[R2] Ankita Raina (IND,160) l Qiang Wang (CHN,29) 61 26 46
[R3] Sowjanya Bavisetti (IND)/ Riya Bhatia (IND) l Shuai Peng (CHN)/ YiFan Xu (CHN) 06 16

Fed Cup Week Highlight – Ankita Raina

The lioness played eight matches in five days, five singles and three doubles. She overcame several hours of vomiting to leave her all on court. Out and out fighter.

Photo Credits – Maurizio/Krishnakumar Ji/Timmy Thomas@ankita_champ pic.twitter.com/Xr94xRkv0C
— Indian Tennis Daily (@IndTennisDaily) March 8, 2020

India d. Uzbekistan 3-0
[R1] Rutuja Bhosale (IND,433) d. Akgul Amanmuradova (UZB,398) 26 62 75
[R2] Ankita Raina (IND,160) d. Sabina Sharipova (UZB,355) 75 61
[R3] Sowjanya Bavisetti (IND)/ Riya Bhatia (IND) d. Yasmina Karimjanova (UZB)/ Sitora Normuradova (UZB) 63 61

Fed Cup Week Highlights – Sowjanya Bavisetti and Riya Bhatia

Stepping in for doubles whenever the team needed, the pair won one and lost one. In their early stages of their Fed Cup careers, they would have had a lot of learnings to take forward

Photo Credits – Maurizio/KK pic.twitter.com/7uvnWiTk7a
— Indian Tennis Daily (@IndTennisDaily) March 8, 2020

India d. Korea 2-1
[R1] Rutuja Bhosale (IND,433) d. Su Jeong Jang (KOR,309) 75 64
[R2] Ankita Raina (IND,160) l Na-Lae Han (KOR,184) 46 06
[R3] Sania Mirza (IND)/ Ankita Raina (IND) d. Na-Lae Han (KOR)/ Na Ri Kim (KOR) 64 64

India d. Chinese Taipei 2-1
[R1] Rutuja Bhosale (IND,433) d. Ya Yi Yang (TPE,852) 63 36 76(8)
[R2] Ankita Raina (IND,160) l En Shuo Liang (TPE,205) 63 26 36
[R3] Sania Mirza (IND)/ Ankita Raina (IND) d. Latisha Chan (TPE)/En Shuo Liang (TPE) 64 46 64

India d. Indonesia 2-1
[R1] Rutuja Bhosale (IND,433) l Priska Madelyn Nugroho (INA,UNR) 36 60 36
[R2] Ankita Raina (IND,160) d. Aldila Sutjiadi (INA,370) 63 63
[R3] Sania Mirza (IND)/ Ankita Raina (IND) d. Priska Madelyn Nugroho (INA)/ Aldila Sutjiadi (INA) 76(4) 60

Excellent effort by Ankita, Rutuja and Sania. Now they play Lativia in Latvia on 17^th and 18^th April.

Davis Cup

Indian Davis cup team lost to higher rated Croatia 1-3. Prajnesh missed an opportunity to give the lead to us and had an unheralded loss against lower ranked Borna Gojo after winning the first set. Maran Cilic was too good for our 2 singles players who played against him – Ramkumar and Sumit although Ramkumar put up a very good fight and lost in 2 close tie breaks. Our doubles team of Leander Paes and Rohan Bopanna had a superb win over higher ranked Croatian team.

Photo Credits: Vishnu Reddy

These are their summarised results –

R1] Prajnesh Gunneswaran (IND,132) l Borna Gojo (CRO,277) 63 46 26

[R2] Ramkumar Ramanathan (IND,182) l Marin Cilic (CRO,37) 67(8) 67(8)

[R3] Rohan Bopanna (IND)/ Leander Paes (IND) d. Mate Pavic (CRO)/ Franko Skugor (CRO) 63 67(9) 75

[R4] Sumit Nagal (IND,127) l Marin Cilic (CRO,37) 06 16

The Indian team will not be playing world group 1 playoff in September against one of these teams –

Slovakia Belarus,Uruguay,Ukraine,Bolivia,Finland,Lebanon,New Zeland,Peru,Norway,Romania or Pakistan.

The draw will be out on Friday, 13^th March.

ITF Women

In a good run in an ITF tournament in Cairo,Egypt, Zeel Desai made it to the final after beating second and third seeds in this tournament. In the final she narrowly missed beating the local top seed and lost in 3 sets in a marathon match of 3 hour 55 mins. after missing a matchpoint in second set tie break.

These are her summarised results –

[R1] (5) Zeel Desai (IND,681) d. (Q) Emma Van Poppel (NED,NR) 61 62
[R2] (5) Zeel Desai (IND,681) d. (Q) Zeina Shabban (EGY,NR) 60 60
[QF] (5) Zeel Desai (IND,681) d.(3) Meiling Wang (CHN,514) 46 61 64

[SF] (5) Zeel Desai (IND,681) d. (2) Valeriya Yushchenko (RUS,391) 61 60

[F] (5) Zeel Desai (IND,681) l. (1) Sandra Samir (EGY,377), 75 67(7) 26

Zeel Desai ends as the runner-up in both singles and doubles event at $15k event in Egypt.
Zeel has been on a great form since the beginning of the year. She had a match point in the second set, but lost the gruelling 3 setter after almost 4 hrs on court against Samir Sandra. pic.twitter.com/0It0AK0P6U
— Indian Tennis Daily (@IndTennisDaily) March 9, 2020

ATP Challenger Tour & ITF Men

Sriram Balaji and Jeevan Nedunchezhiyan had a good run in ATP Monterrey Challenger, where they came through two close matches before going down to the fourth seeds in the semifinals.

[R1] (5) Jeevan Nedunchezhiyan (IND)/ Sriram Balaji (IND) d (WC) Milledge Cossu (USA)/ Adrian Mannarino (FRA) 4-6 6-3 10-6

[QF] (5) Jeevan Nedunchezhiyan (IND)/ Sriram Balaji (IND) d Federico Coria (ARG)/ Daniel Altmaier (GER) 2-6 6-3 15-13

[SF] (5) Jeevan Nedunchezhiyan (IND)/ Sriram Balaji (IND) l (4) Orlando Luz (BRA) / Rafael Matos (BRA) 4-6 5-7

In $25k ITF event in Potchefstroom,South Africa Siddharth Rawat reached the doubles quarters and bowed out in the second round in singles. Arjun Kadhe lost in the second round in the $15k ITF event in Faro, Portugal. Manish Sureshkumar and Adil Kalyanpur had opening round exits in both singles and doubles event in $15k Monastir, Tunisia.