Oct 18 Notes

Just got back from a trip abroad, and it's time to update everybody on what has been going on for the last few days .. No, I just stepped out for a few days - did not disappear .. Had internet access been as easy in Germany as it is in USA (or India, I believe), I could have had more updates.

Anyway, I guess everybody knows what happened at the Davis Cup .. The results of the last three matches were - M.Bhupathi/ L.Paes d. D.Johnson/ J.Palmer 64 16 63 76(6) .. Andy Roddick d. Leander Paes 46 63 62 75 .. James Blake d. Harsh Mankad 63 60 .. The bottom line, based on all the reports, both from the fans in our forum page, and from newspapers, is that LP raised his game as he normally does in Davis Cup, but that wasn't enough .. LP-MB added to the miserable record that USA has in doubles (regardless of often throwing a worls top-3 doubles team out there!) .. And LP-MB have now won 8 Davis Cup doubles matches in a row, over about 5 years .. The reports on Harsh is that he has again shown a bit more improvement over the last few months in college, but the old problem of the lack of power is not going away ..

LP-MB are at the Stuttgart masters tournament .. 4th seeds with a first round bye .. They won their second round match today over David Adams and Lucas Arnold 75 63, and are in the QFs against unseeded Ellis ferreira and Jeff Tarango, who upset the 7th seed Pala-Vizner .. I wish I could stay back for an extra day in Germany to catch them play at Stuttgart - but i couldn't .. So I missed them in the US as I was in Germany, and I missed them in Germany, as I returned to the US!

The India F4 futures is underway in Mumbai .. When I saw the entry list a couple of weeks back, I thought it was the weakest ever in futures history, with a top seed just barely at 600 in ATP ranking .. In fact Eyal Erlich of Israel was the only foreign player that I thought really had a chance .. And it has turned out that way, with Ajay Ramaswamy, Srinath and Rohan Bopanna reaching the semis .. Sunil Kumar reached the QF with a couple of good wins, especially over the 5th seed in the first round .. Good show .. He went down to Ajay, who seems to be showing the kind of fire in the belly that saw his go up to the top of the US college ranks last year .. Ajay praised Sunil for the unusual power he shows in his service, for his size .. Sunil had 11 aces in the match that ended in a 3rd set tiebreaker that Ajay won .. Bopanna is another player who has looked uite improved this year.  Good to see Sri back out there agai - he reportedly is a bit inconsistent, but has done well .. See the Mumbai futures page.

Manisha was at the $50K Largo (Florida) challenger qualies, but went down in the final round of qualies to the top seed .. She and Leanne Baker (NZL) have won the first round of doubles over Maureen Drake and Svetlana Krivencheva, 26 64 61 yesterday ..

7th seeded Sania lost in the PQF to the 11th seed Kristina Czafikova (CZE) 06 64 26 at the Osaka Mayers Cup grade-A ITF juniors in Japan last week .. Jacco Matthew upset the 14th seed Lars Poerschke (GER) 62 61 to reache the PQF but feel to 3rd seed Yeu-Tzuo Wang 06 26 there ..

In this weeks' event, the Grade-2 Hong Kong Open, Sania is the 2nd seed and has reached the semifinals! .. She beat Shi-Tong Shao (CHN) 62 60 after a first round bye, and then held on against the 6th seed Natalia Papadopolou (SWE), 26 64 63 .. She again runs into Czafikova, to whom she has lost twice in the past .. Sania and Matea Mezak of Croatia have won two easy rounds after a first round bye, and are in the doubles final there too .. They face Czaficova and Andrea Hlavackova (CZE) in the final .. Jaco Matthew and Nishank Mishra are also there, but not great results to report.

There is also a grade-3 event in Malaysia this week .. Amanjot Singh (top seed), Rohan Gajjar (4th seed), Saurabh Singh (8th) have all reached the QF stage .. Megha Vakharia and Sasha Abraham were the top seed and the 4th seed on the girls' side there, but both were upset in the second round .. Once again I wonder, why don't I see Isha Lakhani at any of these events ?? ..

More later -- a bit stressed for time for now.

Oct 13 Notes

Just a quick note, just in case you looked here for scores .. India is down 0-2 after the first day of Davis Cup .. No big heroics from Leander, though he apparently started with a lot of energy and surprised Blake a bit .. That was about it .. 57 36 36 loss for Leander .. The outcome of the second match between Harsh Mankad and Andy Roddick was not unexpected at all, barring an unbelievable miracle .. Harsh took a few games off Roddick, but the strong serve from Roddick was too much in a 36 46 16 loss .. .. By the way, I am a bit angry at the reports of Indians saying that they would try to be polite and not cheer much, considering the circumstances .. Come on guys, you have been living in the US and you still can't understand what Americans appreciate? .. They don't want any sympathy politeness .. They would rather like us to feel they are fine .. The best way to show appreciation is to take the fight to them, and the US people will appreciate a good fight and sportsman-spirited cheers .. What are you all thinking? I am not asking for any anti-American cheers, but to hell with anybody who complains about some "Saare Jahan se Accha" and "Jai Hind" to be impolite in a Davis Cup tie .. Get your lungs in shape, and get those screams going, folks! ..

Oct 8 Notes

Only 4 days for the Davis Cup!!

As the India F4 futures is next week and the Davis Cup is next this week, i don't think any of our men are playing any pro events this week.. Will find out if any Indian women are playing anywhere.

Sania Mirza and Jaco Matthew are in the draw at the big Grade-A ITF Osaka Mayor's Cup in Japan .. Sania is the 7th seed and faces Seul-Ki Chin of South Korea in the first round .. Jaco is unseeded and plays Shusei Kanabara of Japan .. Both draws are of size 64 .. I have not seen the doubles draws yet .. A lot of top players are there, as can be seen with #37 Sania being seeded only 7th.

Oct 7 Note-2

The finals have always been tough for Mahesh, without his trusted partner Leander with him .. Today was no different - at the Kremlin Cup in Moscow, [F] M.Bhupathi/ J.Tarango l. #4 M.Mirnyi/ S.Stolle, 36 06 .. I think this was the 5th final in others' company for Mahesh and only one time (at St.Poelten last year when MB went on a tear and took over the match to win the title) has it been a win .. Today's match was almost a no-contest, it seemed, and took only 46 minute .. MB-JT fell behind early and could not mount a comeback in the first set .. In the second set, it was all MM-SS, as they put serious pressure on the service with some terrific returns .. Though MB and JT had close to 60% in first serve percentage, a lot of those first serves did not result in points .. In fact, other than once at 40-30 in the 5th game on MB's serve, MB-JT did not even have any game points in the second set .. By the way, there was a customary scene from Tarango after the first game of the second set, on a disputed line-call I believe .. He had some words with the chair umpire and sat down throwing a ball in disgust after they lost that game on their serve after MB had served well twice to save two of the three break points from 0-40 .. As for the stats, MM-SS had 5 aces while our guys had only one .. They converted 4 of 7 break chances, and MB-JT did not have any .. Despite the loss in the final. this was still great work this week by Hesh, in the company of a brand-new partner .. And this was an event with an unusually strong doubles field, and they upset the 3rd and 2nd seeds along the way to the final too .. Mahesh now flies to North Carolina to join the Davis Cup team .. He will get three days of practice there, but he seems to be in good playing shape.

The final gave him 175 points, which is nice because 250 points from the title at Tokyo last year with LP will now be falling off.

Oct 7 Note-1

The doubles final at the $1M Kremlin Cup in Moscow for Bhupathi-Tarango is set for about 7 pm there, as the last match of the day (8.30 pm India .. 11 am New York, +/- 30 min).. 4th seeds Mirnyi-Stolle is another tough team and had beaten the top seeds and the US Davis Cup pair, Johnson-Palmer in easy straight sets in the semis on Friday .. The match will be covered live on http://www.kremlincup.ru/index-eng.shtml with java scoreboard and live vedo (for those with fast enough internet connections) .. The tournament has kept up a very good website, actually.

Oct 6 Notes

Mahesh must be in good form - pretty impressive run so far with Jeff Tarango at the Kremlin Cup in Moscow .. They are unseeded but are in the final after successive upsets of the 3rd and 2nd seeds .. Today, [SF] M.Bhupathi/ J.Tarango d. #2 J.Novak/ D.Rikl, 63 64 .. In the final tomorrow, they face the 4th seeds Max Mirnyi and Sandon Stolle .. In today's match our boys converted 4 of the 5 break points while giving away two breaks to JN-DR on three attempts .. 4 aces to 3 by the others .. Pretty close match in statistics, actually .. MB-JT serving a good 69% of the first serves in.

Oct 5 Notes

Only one week to go for Davis Cup .. Are you all ready? .. Leander is already in the US but will be joining the team in North Carolina over the weekend .. I believe bothe Fazal and Mankad will be reaching Wnston-Salem tomorrow .. Fazal actually told me about being checked over very carefully while leaving from the Tulsa airport (he was at the challenger there this week) .. His Muslim name and a passport showing travel all over, including to places like Dubai (he had a wildcard to the Dubai ATP qualies for winning the Dubai invitational last year) would have caught the eye of the airport security .. But I don't think they were stupid enough to be nasty to a visiting Davis Cup player, who is after all a national guest! .. They did keep him for 10 minutes of scrutiny, but Fazal didn't make an issue of it .. Mustafa will also be getting to North Carolina this week with LP, I believe ..  Not sure when Mahesh will get in from Moscow .. If he is in the final on Sunday, it may be as late as Monday or even Tuesday, I think.

Mahesh and Jeff Tarango will play the semifinal against the second seeds Novak-Rikl tomorrow at 1 pm Moscow time at the $1M Kremlin Cup ATP .. That is 2.30 am India, 5 am New York .. Check out the online live video from court 2 and scoreboard at http://www.kremlincup.ru/index-eng.shtml ..

I just got the entry list for the Mumbai $10K futures next week and so far there are only 17 or 18 players entered! .. The top seed was ranked somewhere in the 700s .. Nobody wants to do international travel now, I guess, unfortunately .. Nitin, Srinath, etc are entered ..

.. Previous notes are at Notes for the week ending on Oct 08 ..

I am getting some enquiries 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 enquiring 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 player, let me know .. I would like to have a mailing list where I can post general announcements and enquiries from the coaches too .. Please email me - R.Jayakrishnan.