LP/MB/NS/Indian-Tennis:
Notes for the week ending on July 12, 2004
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July 12 Note-1
Hello, Title #35 for Mahesh! .. MB and Bjorkman had to play a
true marathon this morning, but came through - [F] (1) M.Bhupathi/ J.Bjorkman
d. Simon Aspelin (SWE)/ Todd Perry (AUS), 46 76(2) 76(6) .. Hmmm ... MB also
picks up 175 points this week, just like LP .. So, a 5 weeks notice have
been served to the Athens field .. LP and MB are in fine form, and everybody
better watch out! .. Mahesh takes this week off, and LP is off to Stuttgart
with David Rikl.
Rohan won his first round qualies yesterday at the Sao Paolo challenger,
62 63 over Alexandre Bonatto (BRA) .. Plays wildcard Frederico Castro
(BRA) today ..Rohan and Mustafa are in the doubles main draw, (which means
they will save some money in hospitality - that is one benefit in having
a partner and good doubles ranks) .. RB-MG play Franco Ferreiro (BRA)
and Ivan Miranda (PER) in the R1 ..
Prakash and Harsh are playing doubles together this week .. They are
the 4th seeds at the Granby challenger in Canada .. Playing Brian Baker
(USA) and Frank Dancevic (CAN) which is quite a tough pair to handle ..
Both PA and HM get today off .. They play each other in singles
tomorrow, first .. Vishal Uppal went down in the second round of
qualies yesterday .. Th3 4th seed beat Jamal Parker (USA) 64 64 and then
fell in the Q2 to David Wendler (ASUS) 26 16 .. Vishal did not find a partner
for doubles main draw, it seems.
Only about half of the qualifying first round matches were done at the
Manchester challenger yesterday, it seems - perhaps it rained there? ..
Vishal Punna plays his Q1 today against Richard Bloomfield.
July 11 Note-2
Mahesh and Bjorkman did not sweat much in the semifinal at the (€ 351,000)
Bastaad Open .. [SF] (1) M.Bhupathi/ J.Bjorkman d. Karsten Braasch (GER)/
Mariusz Fyrstenberg (POL), 63 63 .. The final against Simon Aspelin (SWE)
and Todd perry (AUS) is now postponed to 11 am on Monday .. Go Hesh!.
July 11 Note-1
Hello, Title #29 for Leander! .. At the € 550K Allainz Swiss
Open in Gstaad, Leander and David Rikl defended their title in style with
a 64 62 thrashing of wildcards and local favorites Marc Rosset and Stanislas
Warinka, 64 62 .. They spoiled the day for Marc who is basically retired
after a great career (they had a special cermony in his honor yesterday),
and spoiled the good mood out there after Federer had won a 4 setter -
the Swiss Open singles final traditionally being a best-of-five affair
.. LP-DR went ahead converting their second break chance at AD out in the
7th game .. In the second set, they broke Rosset and Wawrinka in succession
to run up a 4-0 lead and cruised from there .. The title helped them defend
175 points and they shared € 26,330, roughly $15K each .. And they are not
done, as Leander and David are in the draw for the € 590K Mercedes Cup in
Stuttgart next week .. That surprised me, as I thought LP was going to be
at the Kitzbuhel ATP the week after and would be taking time off this coming
week, as he would need some rest before Toronto, Cinicinnati and Athens
coming up right after that .. I think Lee is doing his best to make sure
that he will grab as many points as he can, fast .. I guess if they do well
next week he will take the week off after (he needs it and deserves it!)
By the way, I have of course been imaptient about seeing Leander
and Mashesh together again, but I have to give Lee some serious props
for how he has just gone out and played with so much focus week after week,
for 9 weeks straight, to make sure that he would defend a whole ton of point
he had to defend during this period .. As of early May, about 1500 of the
nearly 2000 points he had were to be defended in 11 weeks and if he did any
less than perfectly, his rank would fall to danger zones below 50 .. He started
on a continuous schedule since May and has picked up nearly 1000 points
in 9 weeks, despite being unfortunate to not do much at two grand slams
.. He had 900 big points to defend at FO and Wimb and came away with just
75 each - for no fault of his, as reported by fans who watched the matches
(In those R2 losses, Rikl basically had off days -I suppose it happens!)
.. But they picked up 75 at Rome, 225 each at Hamburg and Halle, 75 at s-Hertogenbosch,
40 at the Prostejov challenger, and now 175 at Gstaad, for a total of 965
points and two titles in 9 weeks .. Had he not stuck to his guns and played
week after week everywhere, even at a challenger, he would be in some serious
ranking trouble now .. As it stands, he will keep his top-30 rank, and
now has a good chance, if the hot streak contiunues on clay into next week's
Stuttgart event, to even raise the rank closer to top-20 ..
With Hesh holding steady in the top-5, a hot streak from Lee is very
useful for the Athens seeding and "respect" .. I am sure the doubles
players know that Lee is in formidable form right now .. If he does well
next week, takes a week off and does something good with Hesh at Toronto,
I would say that we are in pretty good shape for Athens .. Basically, it
is important for people to have a bit of "fear factor" about the Indian
Express at Athens .. A lot of teams on the tour now only have heard of what
the Indian Express was and really have not seen them play in ages, while
Lee and Hesh have been seeing everything that the other top teams have been
doing and they really do have some advantage to use to their benefit ..
Seeing that they are both in top form, there is no reason for anybody to
think that LP-MB would be much less than what they once were .. What was
important was for people to know that both are in really good form and to
"lose due to fear" -- at the top level of tennis, the psychological advantage
is very important .. Watch out folks, Lee and Hesh are coming .. Right now
you will just have to watch them both do well individually and simply worry
what they will be doing together!!!!! .. Advantage Indian Express! .. Touchwood
and hope injuries stay away.
Speaking of Hesh, he has been waiting for two days to get a semifinal
match done at the Swedish Open .. The problem is that the monsoons seem
to have gone to Bastad .. All play was washed out yesterday and it has been
a six hour rain delay so far, though they had scheduled to play the semis
in the morning and the final in the afternoon .. Justy now, at 3.40 pm
they just started one singles semi finally .. MB's match is scheduled to
start in a few minutes if all goes well .. The other semi was in the 3rd
set two days back and now Massu and Gonzales have given up, and so Aspelin-Perry
are in the final, waiting .. If MB-Bjorkman win the semi, they will
do a late evening final too, I think - rain cooperating.
Congrats go to Sai Jayalakshmy who won the doubles title at the $10K
Sidi Fredj event at Algeria with Shelley Stephens of NZL .. 63 61 win
in the final over Jenifer Elie (USA) and Michaela Johansson (SWE) in the
final ..
July 10 Notes
Some more quick updates -- LP-DR won the semi at Gstaad by 64 64
score against 3rd seed Palmer-Vizner .. Up 5-2 in both sets, dropped
the 8th game both times but then held to win .. Final tomorrow against
Roesset-Wawrinka .. MB-Bjorkman semi was postponed due to rain today ..
Semi and final tomorrow .. Harsh and Aisam fell in a 75 46 26 semifinal
at Nottingham today .. Harsh has gone to the Granby challenger .. Harsh
faces Prakash in the first round there!! .. Vishal Uppal was at the Granby
qualies today .. Won the Q1 and then fell in the Q2 .. Surpise! -- Rohan
Bopanna and Mustafa Ghouse are in Brazil for the Sao Paolo challenger qualies
.. MG lost in Q1 to the top seed today .. RB is the second seed and plays
the Q1 in sunday .. Vishal Punna is at the Manchester challenger qualies
that start tomorrow .. All the details are in various threads in the forum
but I will roundup later .. Wow, all of them putting in their effort, win
or lose! .. We should appreciate it .. LP-DR is in the draw as the 4th seed
at the Stuttgart ATP next week .. More later (and roundup from the Nutrine
Naturo u12/u14 at Hyderabad).
July 9 Notes
Quick updates -- LP-DR won 75 61 to reach the semi at Gstaad ..
Harsh and Aisam won the Nottingham challenger QF, 63 64 and will play
the semi tomorrow .. Shikha and Sunitha fell to the 3rd and second
seeds at the College Park challenger .. Tejasvi Rao lost a 57 76(5)
46 marathon semifinal to the 7th seed at the Thailand grade-5 .. LP,
MB and HM doubles semis remain tomorrow. In other news, the
AITA 4-week satellites ($25K+H) from Oct 5th have hit the ITF calendar
this week.
July 8 Notes
MB and Bjorkman reached the SF at the Bastad ATP with another
match of slow start, which is expected as they are playing together
for the first time .. [QF] (1) Mahesh Bhupathi (IND)/ Jonas Bjorkman
(SWE) d. Massimo Bertolini (ITA)/ Robbie Koenig (RSA), 46 61 63 ..
They play the 3rd seeds Karsten Braasch (GER) and Mariusz Fyrstenberg
(POL) .. The semifinal will be on Saturday .. At the Gstaad open, rain
cutr short the evening schedule and LP-DR's QF match is postponed to tomorrow
now.
The big win today was by Shikha Uberoi (USA),
who I believe upset the 7th seed Kelly Liggan (IRL,223) to reach
the QF at the $25K College Park challenger .. I don't have the
score yet .. Sunitha Rao also has reached the QF there .. They play
the 3rd and second seeds respectively, next .. No news yet on Tara
Iyer's doubles match this evening.
At the Nottingham challenger, rain postponed Mankad-Qureshi's
doubles QF to Friday ..
At the $10K Sidi Fredj event in Algeria, the
second seed Sai fell in the QF .. [QF] (2) Sai Jayalakshmy (IND,541)
l. Karoline Borgersen (NOR,809), 62 75 .. In doubles, [R1] K.Italia/
Anastassia Michail (GRE) l. Assia Halo (ALG)/ Samia Medjahdi (ALG),
26 46 .. Indians had good succes in the doubles QFs .. [QF] (1) S.Jayalakshmy/
Shelley Stephens (NZL) d. Katie Muller (RSA)/ Roseta Navarro-Pons
(ESP), 60 60 .. [QF] Cecil Baijot (BEL)/ P.Goswami d.Anna-Maria Miller
(AUT)/ Birgit Riederer (AUT), 61 63 .. [QF] G.Manohar/ N.Perumal d.
Paola Iovino (VEN)/ Mariana Muci (VEN), 64 36 61 .. In the semifinal,
[SF] (1) S.Jayalakshmy/ Shelley Stephens (NZL) d. Cecil Baijot (BEL)/
P.Goswami, 61 64 .. They face the winners of the other semi - [SF]
G.Manohar/ N.Perumal vs Jennifer Elie (USA)/ Michaela Johansson (SWE)
..
At the $10K in Flexistowe (UK), Shruti Dhawan
(IND,673) vs (5) Michelle Snyman (NED,596) 26 26 .. No news on
doubles from there.
There was a big match between Tejasvi Rao
and Agnel Gladwyn today in the QFs at the grade-5 ITF juniors
in Thailand .. Tejasvi continued his good run with a 75 63 win
over his country-mate who is probably more known at that age range
..
The Nutrine Naturo second leg u12/u14
AITA junior event has been going on this week in Hyderabad ..
I will compile the results soon and post in a page .. The Nike and
Nutrine tours from last year have changed a bit this year, and a
series of u12/u14 events are being conducted with some common purposes
.. From what I can gather, Globosport is still doing the Nike masters
event which selects the u12 and u14 winners for the Nike international
masters, which will be in France later in the year (it was in RSA
the previous years), but they will use the AITA Nutrine events to
select the team for the Nike masters .. The AITA Nutrine Naturo Tour
consists of six AITA championship series junior events, one every
month, which leads to a Nutrine Masters by year-end [Chennai – 07 Jun,
Hyderabad – 05 Jul, Delhi – 02 Aug, Kolkata – 13 Sep, Pune - Oct
18, Mumbai - Nov 8, followed by a Nutrine Naturo Masters at Bangalore
- Nov 29] .. The Nike Masters at the TennisVillage in Bangalore is conducted
from Sep 27th with the entry based on the performance in the first four
of the Nutrine events plus a kick off Nike event in March (and AITA
super series event, Delhi, Mar 29) .. So, this week at Hyderbad, we
are on to the 3rd in a series of NINE well-spaced events which determines
the best in the u12 and u14 age ranges by year end .. So far,
one name has caught my eye, which is Aishwarya Srivastava from
Pune, coached by Nandan Bal if I am not mistaken, who won both the u12
and u14 girls titles last month at Chennai, without even dropping a set
to anybody! .. She has advanced so far in both the draws at Hyderabad
this week too .. ShriRam Balaji won the u14 at Chennai but was upset in
the first round this week at Hyderabad .. Unseeded Mohit Mayur won the
boys u12 at Chennai .. I like the continuity and structure in this
year's Nutrine series ..
I think AITA needs to send out a clear, concise
press release explaining what is the Nike tour and what is the
Nutrine tour, so that everybody knows the nice plans in place
.. I am not sure if everyone other than the kids' parents know what
is going on. It is a very important part of our tennis development
scheme and we have really started moving down into the 12-14 age for
identifying talent clearly, as opposed to the 13-16 that used to be
the way .. Now we also need to do a bit more towards sending u15 teams
to Europe (on clay!), roughly in the same type of events where the
ITF has taken one or two indians every year .. I have found
many Chinese players in those u14 and u16 ETA events in Europe for
the past few years but our players see European standards only when they
hit 16-17 and play bigger ITF events there .. Some of them even start
seriously working on their physical fitness only after seeing how advanced
the 14 and 15 year old kids are on that matter .. Good to start earlier
.. The Nutrine tour gives us a way to identify a few good ones under
14 or 15 to be given some very early exposure abroad .. I hope we will
seriously think of this from next year onwards.
July 7 Notes
Both LP and MB advanced to QFs today .. At the
Gstaad ATP, [R1] (1) L.Paes/ D.Rikl d. Lucas Arnold (ARG)/
Martin Garcia (ARG), 61 63 .. Easy match for them .. LP-DR
play the QF tomorrow at 6 pm against Jiri Novak and Radek Stepanek
of Czech Republic .. At the Bastad ATP, Mahesh and new partner Jonas
Bjorkman who is currently #1 in doubles ranking, had a rough start
but they were too good to let that go on for too long against a wildcard
pair .. [R1] (1) M.Bhupathi/ Jonas Bjorkman (SWE) d. (WC) Ervin
Eleskovic (SWE)/ Robert Lindstedt (SWE), 46 63 62 .. Up next are
Massimo Bertolini (ITA)/ Robbie Koenig (RSA) in the QF tomorrow at about
3 pm.
No good news today from the $25K+H grass challenger
in Nottingham, UK .. Rohan Bopanna played a hell of a match
and showed he still has his game, but as has been our luck lately,
the win just refuses to come to our boys .. [R1] R.Bopanna (IND,444)
l. Lee Childs (GBR,300), 75 46 57 .. Also, [R1] M.Ghouse/ R.Bopanna
l. (4) Jean-Francois Bachelot (FRA)/ Jean-Michel Pequery (FRA),
26 26 .. Prakash and Petzchner gave a walkover in the R1 doubles today;
not sure why - hopefully only because one of them wanted to leave
early .. So the only second round appearance is for Mankad and Asiam
Qureshi who will play the douibles QF tomorrow against Andrew Banks
and Alex Bogdanovic of GBR ..
At the $25K College Park challenger in the
US, Tara Iyer, who had earned a wildcard by playing a club event
(it is the same place where she trains), went down in the first round
yesterday to Natalia Dziamidzenka (BLR,380) .. Tara is also in
the doubles draw with a wildcard and she plays tomorrow .. The big
match today was between the Uberoi sisters of USA who happened to
be drawn against each other in the first round itself! .. They seem to
have this habit of running into each other - already the 3rd time this
year .. They had split the previous matches which went to 64 64 to
Neha at the Hyderbad WTA qualies and 61 62 to Shikh at the $10K in
Fort Worth just three weeks back .. It turned out to be a marathin today,
but the elder sister Shikha somehow pulled it out in the end, 63 46 76(2)
.. Also winning today was Sunitha Rao (USA) who beat Amanda Johnson (USA),
63 75 ..
At the grade-5 Thailand ITF juniors, where
qualifier Agnel Gladwyn upset the 5th seed Kyle Dandan
(PHI) to reach the QF whewre he will run into the second seed Tejasvi
Rao, who continues to show some good consistency .. Though
these are lower-graded events without too much of points, the way
some of the players show up to play is an indication of their quality
.. Tejasvi seems to be a good one .. Agnel is more known at that age group
in India, though he has not played too many ITF events yet .. In fact
both the 15 year olds have played only 3-4 ITF junior events so far and
this is the first time both are playing three weeks at a stretch .. Should
be a fun match tomorrow.
July 6 Note-2
The new rankings after Wimbledon hardly changed
anything much in the ATP doubles ranks. The defending
champs Bjorkman-Woodbridge easily won and kept their top two
ranks .. Anyway, I went and checked all the rankings of the teams
nominated for Olympics. I am projecting the Indian Express
as a 5th or 6th seed as of now .. Take a look at my
projections
in the forum Olympics-tennis thread .. Put in your thoughts
.. I think LP-MB can still get a 4th seed but it would take some
persuasive arguments from somewhere..
Update from the Algeria $10K .. Sai reached
the QF, beating Magali de Lattre (POR,807), 26 63 63 .. Nice
win .. Geeta Manohar (IND,996) went down to Karoline Borgersen
(NOR,809), 26 16 .. Sai vs Borgersen next ..
Some interesting news about Rajeev Ram
of USA .. Entering the qualies draw unseeded, he upset the
3rd seed Eric Taino in the first round and pulled off two more
upsets to make the main draw at the $375K Newport ATP .. Great work
by Rajeev .. So at least two foreign Indian names (Arvind Parmar of
UK being the other) will play the main draw of a grasscourt ATP tour
event this year .. I am not sure why I am suddenly feeling all mushy
about grass tennis .. Perhaps the realization hit me more this year that
we may not have too many grass players from India in the future at the
rate we have sidelined grasscourt tennis, and perhaps I feel a bit guilty
myself for having always talked of clay tennis as what will make solid
players ..
Speaking of clay, I saw that Vishal Punna
is now entered in the $10K in Italy in two weeks .. Sunil Kumar's
name is in the preliminary list for the Mordovia clay challenger
in Russia in 4 weeks, as well .. Somdev Dev Varman shocked everybody
this year winning a clay futures .. Things are certainly changing
in Indian tennis. That is good, but I still say we need a few grasscourt
events in India.
July 6 Note-1
LP's doubles match was postponed to tomorrow
at the Gstaad ATP .. I don't know why - they gave another
cow to Federer and they tried to milk the publicity for way
too long or what? .. MB-Bjorkman doubles R1 is also on shcedule
for tomorrow, at the Bastad ATP in Sweden.
Bad news from Nottingham as the grass
season ended for Prakash and Harsh without any fireworks ..
[R1] H.Mankad (IND,321) l. Tasuku Iwami (JPN,369) 57 46 ..
[R1] P.Amritraj (IND,251) l. David Scherrer (SUI,238), 46 63 16
.. Harsh and Aisam won the doubles first round later in the day,
75 64 over Mark Hilton and Jonathan Marray of GBR .. Rohan
Bopanna plays his first round tomorrow .. Bopanna-Ghouse and Amritraj-Petzchner
are playing their doubles R1 as well tomorrow.
In the entry lists that came out today
for challengers three weeks from now, Parakash is in the
main draw for the Lexington challenger, with Harsh 6 spots
out, which is really 4 out after the special exempt spots are cleared
- HM may make it in the end .. Harsh withdrew his name in the last
minute from the Togliatti (Russia) challenger, as he was unsure
of getting visas on time; that helped Sunil Kumar Sipaeya who made
it into that challenger main draw as the last direct entry .. Sunil's
rank went up to #396 this week with a few points from the Indian satellites
.. It is so nice to see four Indians in challenger draws, as this
is the first challenger draw abroad that Sunil is making as a direct
entry .. The only thing is that we are always getting impatient
for some good wins at these challengers, like PA, SKS and HM did at
Fergana a few weeks back.
Here are the results from the women's
$10K in Sidi Freidj in Algeria: [R1] Nandini perumal (IND,938)
l. Anastassia Michail (GRE,NR), 36 26 .. [R1] Parul Goswami (IND,1030)
l. Magali de Lattre (POR,807), 61 16 26 .. [R1] Khushchehr Italia
(IND,NR) l. Karoline Borgersen (NOR,809) 46 36 ..[R1] (2) Sai Jayalakshmy
(IND,541) d. Ilham Zouaoui (ALG,NR) 64 60 .. [R1] Geeta Manohar (IND,996)
d. Nabila Yasri (ALG,NR) 60 60 ..In the second round, Sai plays de
Lattre and Geeta plays Borgersen .. In doubles, Sai and Shelley
Stephens (NZL) are top seeds with a bye .. [R1] Cecil Baijot/ P.Goswami
d. Joanne Akl (FRA)/ Amira ben Aissa (ALG), 64 64 .. [R1] G.Manohar/
N.Perumal d. Houda Yasri (ALG)/ Nabila Yasri (ALG), 60 62 .. [R1] Khushchehr
and Anastassia Michail (GRE) play Assia Halo (ALG)/ Samia Medjahdi (ALG)
..
Shruti Dhawan (IND,673) had a good start
at the $10K in Flexistowe, UK with a 63 64 win over Katharine
Baker (GBR,785) .. In doubles, Shruti and Dubravka Cupac
(AUS) play Katharine Baker and Melissa Gibb of GBR.
Her are the details of Jeevan Nedunchezhiyan's
nice show with the ITF u16 team in a series of tough u16 events
in Europe .. Using Neil's excerpts from ITF's weekly round
up - "During June and July, the ITF selected a team of eleven
16 & under players from eight countries to compete in a fiveweek
tour in Europe. Jeevan and Madura were selected from India ...
The tournaments were, 31 May – 6 June Cierrebiclub, Bologna, Italy
.. 7 June – 12 June Avvenire Tournament, Milano, Italy .. 14 June
– 20 June Derby Cadets, La Baule, France .. 21 June – 27 June Le Pont
des Generations, Le Pontet, France .. 29 June – 4 July Paris-Cadets,
Paris, France .. The first tournament took place in Bologna where
Jeevan Nedunchezhiyan reached the boys’ singles quarterfinals before
losing to Daniel Lopez of Paraguay 67 63 63 .. At the Trofeo Avvenire
tournament in Milan, in the boys’ doubles, Nedunchezhiyan and Franklyn
Emmanuel reached the semifinals, before losing 64 36 63 to Thomas Fabbiano
(ITA) and Andrei Karatchenia (BLR) .. In France, the Spanish partnership
of Gerard Granollers and Daniel Ramentol were beaten in the final by
ITF pairing Emmanuel and Nedunchezhiya, who won the title 62 76 .. The
following week at Le Pontet saw another doubles final appearance for the
pairing of Emmanuel and Nedunchezhiyan, who eventually lost 36 64
76 to South Americans Daniel Lopez (PAR) and Emiliano Massa (ARG) ..
The final week of the tour took place at Paris Cadets where Nedunchezhiyan
and Emmanuel overwhelmed Lopez and Nicolas Terrera (ARG) to lift the trophy
64 63 .. ITF Team coach Frank Zlesak said: “The ITF team’s results have
been very good and it is encouraging to see the excellent progress made
by players throughout the tour, in particular Ayu Fani Damayanti, Liset
Brito, Franklyn Emmanuel and Jeevan Nedunchezhiyan.” ... The one
semifinal and two quarterfinal apperance saw Jeevan jump up in the European
rankings to #37 this week ..
Madura has now joined Sandhya Nagraj
and Vandana Murali who were in Netherlands from last week,
sent by the Tamil Nadu Tennis Academy's TATE (Tamil Nadu Academy
for Tennis Excellence) program .. The three of them are at the
grade-4 ITF juniors in Leeuwenburg, NED, this week. The
main draw was to start today .. In last week's Dutch grade-2 on clay,
Sandhya and Vandana lost in the second round matches.
There are a few young Indians at
the grade-5 ITF juniors in Thailand this week .. Tejasvi
Rao who had that great run two weeks back, and a final-16
apperance last week at the Indonesia grade-3, is the second seed
in the boys' draw and has reached the PQF .. Agnel Gladwyn, who did
not have a great time in indoensia, qualified in this week and has
upset the 9th seed Arnav Jain to reach the final 16 this week (Arnav
is also not doing great but he too had a PQF last week) .. S.Prateek
and Kinshuk Sharma were seeded but lost in the second round after byes
.. Bad news in the girls' draw, as top seed K.Pooja, and unseeded T.Sravya
and Sushrutha Reddy, all lost in the first round.
July 5 Notes
Leander and David Rikl play their first
round Tuesday night at the Gstaad Swiss Open .. That match
will be after the Swiss hero Roger Federer's opening match
on center court, which will be preceded by a scheduled "welcome to
the wimbledon champion" program .. They gave him a cow last year
there .. What would they do this time -- another cow? .. By the way,
Lee and David are the defending champs there -- I forgot earlier that
this may have been part of the reason why Lee decided to continue with
Rikl after Olympics ..
Mahesh and Jonas Bjorkman will probably
play only on wednesday at Bastad (Sweden) .. I found this pairing
interesting - they are playing together for the first
time, and both of them normally play the left court .. I wonder
who is switching side this week .. Probably JB I assume, as MB is
way too good on the AD court ..
Great news from the Nottingham challenger
.. 4th seed Rohan Bopanna qualified into the main draw with
another good win - [Q3] Rohan Bopanna (IND,442) d. David
Sherwood (GBR,510), 76(7) 64 .. In the main draw, he plays Lee
Childs (GBR,300), on wednesday .. Harsh Mankad (IND,321) got a decent
break, as Nenad Zimonjic withdrew and was replaced by Tasuku Iwami
(JPN,369) in the draw .. Prakash Amritraj (IND,251) plays David
Scherrer (SUI,238) .. Harsh and Prakash play back to back matches
tomorrow morning, with Harsh coming back for a doubles match later
.. In the doubles draw, [R1] (2) H.Mankad/ R.Bopanna vs Jonathan Marray
(GBR)/ Mark Hilton (GBR) .. [R1] R.Bopanna/ M.Ghouse vs (4) jean-Francois
Bachelot (FRA)/ Jean-Michel Pequery (FRA) .. [R1] P.Amritraj/ Phillip
Petzschner (GER) vs (WC) James Auckland (GBR)/ Lee Childs (GBR) ..
RB, MG and PA are not playing doubles on tomorrow .. Prakash managed
to squeeze into the doubles draw as the last team with Petzchner .. Good
to see the Indian gang doing well there ..
By the way, Prakash just lost 36 points from the Indian
satellites last year and his rank has dropped about 31 spots
this week .. He still has 35 points to defend in the coming
four weeks from last year at the ATP events in Newport, Los Angeles,
Indianapolis .. He has a good stretch of challengers now, at Granby
in Canada followed by Aptos, Lexington and Denver in the US to
make some points and stay within the range for US Open qualies entry.
No news from the qualies at the $25K women's event at College
Park, Maryland (USA) for the Uberois and Tara .. The USTA people
have not posted any draws/scores, as they are on vacation today
due to the US independence day.
Have some really good news to report on how 15 year old Jeevan
Nedunchezhiyan did in the u16 tour of Europe with the ITF
team .. I completely forgot about this one, till Neil noticed the
write-up in the ITF weekly roundup and wrote in the forum .. Jeevan
reached QFs and SFs and won doubles titles on that tour and
impressed everybody .. I will give details soon -- he reached #
37 spot in the European u16 list the highest rank by any non-European
player this year, all from just 5 events..
.. Previous notes are at Notes
for the weeks ending on July 05 ..
I am getting some inquiries from US college
coaches who are interested in Indian junior players .. I would like to be able to
contact Indian players (some of the coaches are inquiring about specific names) ..
If any of the junior players are reading this, please contact me .. Or if any of
the other readers know the contact emails/address for any junior playera, let me know ..
Please email me - R.Jayakrishnan