ATP Challenger Tour
Prajnesh, Mukund and RamK all played at the final Japan challenger this week while Sumit was playing in Europe- all playing their last tournament of the year. However, only Mukund could win his first round match this week while the other 3 lost in first round bringing to end a disappointing year in singles for us. With RamK dropping his title points from last year/’s Baharain Challenger, Mukund will become the new India #1 and will end the year as India #1. However, for the first time since 2005 we will not have a single player in top 300.
Jeevan made the doubles final at Chile Challenger along with his partner from Venezuela.
These are results of our players on challenger tour this week-
At the Challenger 80 in Yokkaichi, Japan (Hard):
[R1] Ramkumar Ramanathan (IND,280) l. (Q) Colin Sinclair (NMI,364), 26 26
[R1] Prajnesh Gunneswaran (IND,347) l. (1) Kaichi Uchida (JPN,165), 36 61 36
[R1] Mukund Sasikumar (IND,353) d. (WC) Naoki Nakagawa (JPN,469), 63 76(4)
[R2] Mukund Sasikumar (IND,353) l. Yunseong Chung (KOR,361), 16 46
[R1] (1) Arjun Kadhe (IND)/ Ramkumar Ramanathan (IND) l. Toshihide Matsui (IND)/ Kaito Uesugi (IND), 57 57
At the Challenger 90 in Valencia, Spain (Red Clay)
[R1] Sumit Nagal (IND,502) l. (Q) Javier Barranco Cosano (ESP,305), 26 46
[R1] Anirudh Chandrasekar (IND)/ N Vijay Sundar Prashanth (IND) d. (Alt) Raul Brancaccio (ITA)/ Carlos Lopez Montagud (ESP), 46 63 [10-3]
[QF] Anirudh Chandrasekar (IND)/ N Vijay Sundar Prashanth (IND) l. Zvonimir Babic (CRO)/ Piotr Matuszewski (POL), 67(1) 46
At the Challenger 100 in Temuco, Chile (Hard):
[R1] (2) Luis David Martinez (VEN)/ Jeevan Nedunchezhiyan (IND) d. Mateus Alves (BRA)/ Alafia Ayeni (USA), 64 62
[QF] (2) Luis David Martinez (VEN)/ Jeevan Nedunchezhiyan (IND) d. (WC) Nicolas Bruna (BRA)/ Joao Domingues (BRA), 61 64
[SF] (2) Luis David Martinez (VEN)/ Jeevan Nedunchezhiyan (IND) d. (3) Boris Arias (BOL)/ Federico Zeballos (BOL), 46 64 [10-3]
[F] (2) Luis David Martinez (VEN)/ Jeevan Nedunchezhiyan (IND) l. (1) Guido Andreozzi (ARG)/ Guillermo Duran (ARG) 46 26
ITF Tour
On the womens ITF tour, Ankita Raina made it to the singles SF and doubles final in Trarlgon W25 in Australia. She upset third seeded Australian in the QF but lost in 3 close sets in the SF to Destanee Aiwa. Ankita had to play second singles match on same day as her QF while Destanne got a walkver in her QF which played a part in their SF which went to 3 sets. Sahaja lost in the second round against Destanee.
These are Ankita’s results in Australia-
At the W25 in Traralgon (AUS) this week,
[R1] (5) Ankita Raina (IND,302) d. Haruna Arakawa (JPN,422), 63 60
[R1] Sahaja Yamalapalli (IND,488) d. (WC) Zara Brankovic (AUS, ITF/1218), 46 63 60
[R2] (5) Ankita Raina (IND,302) d. Michika Ozeki (JPN,632) 60 62
[R2] Sahaja Yamalapalli (IND,487) l. (8) Destanee Aiawa (AUS,401) 06 26
[QF] (5) Ankita Raina (IND,302) d. (3) Madison Inglis (AUS,182) 06 63 63
[SF] (5) Ankita Raina (iND,302) l. (8) Destanee Aiawa (AUS,401) 36 63 26
In the continuing Indian circuit on ITF mens tour, this week there was M15 in Bhilai. Our Digivijay Pratao Singh and Manish Sureshkumar pulled out from this week. So, we had only 1 ( Sid Rawat) among our top 10 singles players.
But, we got 5 to the QF and 2 to the SF. Very encouraging performance by 19 year old Karan Singh who upset last week’s winner Palan in the QF. However, in the SF Niki Poonacha proved better against Karan. Niki in turn lost against top seed Orlov in the final.
In doubles, pairing of Niki Kaliyanda Poonacha and Rithvik Choudary Bollipalli continued their impressive run as they won fifth consecutive title on mens tour. This is the 6th final in the last 7 tournaments for them, and they have won all six titles. 20 wins in a row and 289of the last 30 matches. They haven’t even dropped a set in 13 matches. 26 sets in a row, and only 2 even went to a tiebreaker. Truly remarkable consistency and dominance.
Niiki is 347 and Rithwik is 375 in live rankings now. Once 15 more points are added for this week’s title, Niki will move up to around 320 and Rithwik around 355.
