The rising stars of Indian tennis showed promise by punching above their weight while the familiar names failed to live up to their billing in the ITF M25 event held last week in Bhubaneswar.
Aryan Shah was the best of the lot making the semifinals in Men’s Singles beating the likes of Rishab Agarwal, Sidharth Rawat, and Rethin Pranav Senthil Kumar before losing out to the eventual champion & World Rank 254 Dalibor Svrcina in the semi-finals 0-6, 4-6.
17-year-old national champion, Rethin Pranav Senthil Kumar who entered via a wildcard reached the quarterfinals losing out to Aryan Shah. He had beaten the 4th-seeded Egor Agafonov in the 2nd round.
Dev Javia also reached the quarters, beating 6th seed Siddharth Vishwakarma and the upcoming American junior Adhithya Ganesan.
Karan Singh made the quarterfinals on the back of his quarterfinal appearance at M50 Challenger in Brazzaville last week. He had also won the doubles title there partnering Florent Bax.
S D Prajwal Dev was another Indian who reached the quarterfinals upsetting the 2nd seed Sasikumar Mukund in the first round 6-1, 2-6 & 6-3.
Among the stalwarts to have a bad outing was the 2nd seed, Sasikumar Mukund, Manish Sureshkumar who went down in the first round to the upcoming junior Manas Dhamne 7-6, 1-6 & 3-6. Doubles specialist, Vishnu Vardhan qualified for the main draw of the singles from the qualifiers.
In doubles, the Indian duo of Rishab Agarwal & Kabir Hans won the title beating the top-seeded pairing of Egor Agafonov & Bogdan Bobrov 6-4, 6-3.
The Indian pairs of Siddhant Banthia & Vishnu Vardhan and Ishaque Eqbal & Faisal Qamar made the semifinals as well.
The Indian players will look to improve in the upcoming M25 events in Mumbai & Kalaburagi in the upcoming weeks.
ITF M25 Mumbai Preview
Indian players will look to make the most of home conditions at the ITF M25 Mumbai event being held this week.
In Men’s Singles, the Indian focus will again be on the familiar faces from the Bhubaneswar event like Sasikumar Mukund (4th seed), youngsters Aryan Shah, Karan Singh (7th seed), Yuvan Nandal, Dev Javia, and Manas Dhamne. Joining them this week is Ramkumar Ramnathan who is seeded 3.
However, they face strong competition from the likes of the top seed, Khumoyun Sultanov (World Rank 229) & the winner at Bhubaneswar & 2nd seed, Dalibor Svrcina.
On the doubles side, the top seeds are the runner-up
from Bhubaneswar, Egor Agafonov & Bogdan Bobrov. The Indian challenge will be spearheaded by the likes of 2nd seed S D Prajwal Dev & Adil Kalyanpur, 3rd seeded Siddhant Banthia & Vishnu Vardhan, and 4th seeds Parikshit Somani & Manish Sureshkumar.
Other pairs to watch out would be the pairing of Dev Javia & Karan Singh and the teenage duo of Aryan Shah & Adhithya Ganesan (USA).
