Tuesday, August 07, 2018

Tennis News

At $150K Jinan Challenger 2018, China

[R1] (1) Ramkumar Ramanathan (IND,117) l Harri Heliovaara (FIN,349) 36 46
[R1] (Q) Manish Sureshkumar (IND,584) l Duck Hee Lee (KOR,239) 16 36

[R2] Arjun Kadhe (IND,346) vs James Ward (GBR,305)

Doubles
[R1] (4) Arjun Kadhe (IND)/ Toshihide Matsui (JPN) l Zhe Li (CHN)/ Di Wu (CHN) 63 57 9-11

A shocking straight sets loss of RamK against experienced Harri Heliovaara ... Manish also failed to challenge Duck Hee Lee in his one-sided loss.
Arjun is having a tough match against experienced James Ward in the second round.

Turned to be a bad day for us as Arjun and Matsui also lost their doubles match against experience Chinese pair ... In the match tie-break, Arjun-Matsui had a match point at 9-8 on their own serve.


At $150K+H Pullach Challenger 2018, Germany

[R1] N. Sriram Balaji (IND)/ Vishnu Vardhan (IND) l Sander Gille (BEL)/ Joran Vliegen (BEL) 57 46

Another early loss for Bala and Vishnu against Belgian pair ... I think they will sooner move to the hard courts in US or Asia after completing their training by playing in European challengers.

At $60K ITF Women's Tournament 2018, Jinan, China

[R1] (7) Ankita Raina (IND,195) bt Jia-Qi Kang (CHN,597) 76(8) 75

[R2] (7) Ankita Raina (IND,195) vs En Shuo Liang (TPE,287)

Doubles
[R1] Anastasia Gasanova (RUS)/ Ankita Raina (IND) bt Hanyu Guo (CHN)/ Ying Zhang (CHN) 64 76(6)

[QF] Anastasia Gasanova (RUS)/ Ankita Raina (IND) vs (2) Chen Liang (CHN)/ Qiu Yu Ye (CHN)

Ankita scored a win in the tight two sets against Jia-Qi Kang in the first round ... Next, she is facing young Taiwani top-300 teenager En Shuo Liang.

In the doubles also Ankita started with a win partnering Gasanova ... They defeated Chinese pair in close straight sets ... Next, they r having a tough match against the 2nd seeds Chinese pair.


At $25K ITF Women's Tournament 2018, Nonthaburi, Thailand

[R1] (1) Karman Kaur Thandi (IND,200) bt Yuuki Tanaka (JPN,500) 63 62
[R1] (Q) Mihika Yadav (IND,1041) l (7) Ling Zhang (HKG,331) 76(6) 16 46

[R2] (1) Karman Kaur Thandi (IND,200) vs Xiyu Wang (CHN,384)

Karman started with a comfortable win over Tanaka ... Next, she is facing Chinese teenager Xiyu Wang ... Mihika gave a fighting performance against the 7th seed Ling Zhang ... Mihika won the first set in the tight tie-break but after that Zhang took control for winning the match.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

How come Jay missed out on the historic feat of the Indian Football teams -> U-20 & U-16 which i truly believe could be the defining moment for Indian soccer in the years to come!!!

Jay said...

Ha ha ... I didn't miss it but avoiding to get carried away with results ... Argentine u-20 and Iraq u-16 teams didn't play with their full regular squad. But yes this was a historic moment and I should have put ... I will try to rectify it.

Jay

Anonymous said...

While Argentina & Iraq may not have been at full strength, the following points need to be considered:-

1. While even I read reports about issues faced by the Iraq team, equally true remains the fact that we lost to Asian powerhouse Japan by only a solitary goal margin [2-1] after taking the lead & infact leading at half-time 1-0! & we managed to beat the hosts Jordan & even Yemen today [3 wins in 4 matches is simply great going!] &

2. While Argentina may not have been at full strength, [to make it to the World Cup finals -> which is the ultimate aim], India will not have to look beyond Asia & I am sure even the Argentina team faced by our U-20 heroes would be on any given day superior to the best of the same age group in Asia! We had to play against Argentina for the best part of the second half with 10 men which I consider it as truly remarkable. Even more noteworthy remains the fact, that India scored the second goal with only 10 men after Aniket Jadhav was sent off! [ A spectacular free kick by Anwar Ali which was given a standing ovation for about 5 minutes by the Spanish spectators present on the ground!]

Though tennis remains my favorite sport, my sixth sense tells me some exciting days are ahead for Indian soccer & in the next 10 years it could well turn out to be India's No.1 sport!!!

Jay said...

Good points and well written ... Have to agree with your sentiments.

Jay

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