Players continue to get caught in the cross fire

The Indian players are like sitting ducks. They continue to be caught in the cross fire as officials play politics.

The denial of a wild card for the women’s event in the national tennis championship to the Asian junior champion Snehadevi Reddy is a classic example.

It was a joke that wild cards were selectively given while most of the players were upgraded from the qualifying list to the main draw.

It is no secret that the Tamil Nadu Tennis Association is at war with the All India Tennis Association (AITA) and Karti Chidambaram continues to be a thorn in the flesh for the National federation.

Snehadevi represents Tamil Nadu, and thus had to be refused her rightful place. She did qualify for the main draw, dropping a mere four games in three rounds, but the whole episode left a bad taste.

It was otherwise a good week for the Indian players, as Divij Sharan and Purav Raja made the final of the $125,000 Challenger in Tashkent.

Sanam Singh and Vijayant Malik won the doubles final in the $15,000 ITF men’s Futures tournament in the US. Natasha Palha also made the doubles final in the $10,000 ITF women’s tournament in Egypt with Karina Venditti of Brazil.

This week promises to be more exciting with Jeevan Nedunchezhiyan venturing into Nigeria, even though Leander Paes and Rohan Bopanna will preserve themselves possibly focusing towards a strong finish for the season. The trick is to make the right choice.

Purav Raja and Divij Sharan lose the final in $125K Tashkent Challenger

The second-seeded Divij Sharan and Purav Raja went down without much of a fight 4-6, 4-6 to the unseeded Mikhail Elgin and Teymuraz Gabashvili of Russia in the doubles final of the $125,000 Challenger tennis tournament in Tashkent, Uzbekistan.

The Indian pair, quite pleased to be contesting the final after a string of early exit, got off the blocks on the wrong foot in both the sets, getting broken in the first game. The duo that had qualified for Wimbledon and won an ATP Tour title in Colombia, did break back in the first set, but was unable to find a way to win.

They had to be content with 75 ATP points and sharing $4500. The good news was that Divij and Purav got an entry into the $823,550 Kremlin Cup in Moscow, Russia, this week. They will be up against Alex Bogomolov jr. of Russia and Dudi Sela of Israel in the pre-quarterfinals.

Sanam Singh loses in quarterfinals in Huston Futures

The second-seeded Sanam Singh was beaten 7-6(3), 6-0 by the eighth-seeded Tyler Hochwalt of the US in the quarterfinals of the $15,000 ITF men’s Futures tennis tournament in Houston, Texas.

There was some consolation as the unseeded Sanam and Vijayant Malik won the doubles title with a 7-6(5), 6-4 victory over the fourth-seeded Evan King of the US and Costin Paval of Romania.

By choosing the American and Canadian tournaments, both the Chandigarh lads, Sanam and Vijayant, have tried to jointly improve their ranking and game.

Sriram Balaji loses semifinals in Germany

The fifth-seeded Sriram Balaji lost 2-6, 3-6 to Erik Crepaldi of Italy in the semifinals of the $10,000 ITF men’s Futures tennis tournament in Leimen, Germany.

After beating the top-seeded Adrian Sikora of Slovakia in the third set tie-break earlier, it was a tame loss for the 23-year-old Balaji who had reached a career-best rank of 313 earlier this year, but he should be happy with the good run.

Balaji has the big game as he showed in beating Prajnesh Gunneswaran and his doubles partner Jeevan Nedunchezhiyan early this season in Chennai on way to the ITF men’s title.

Natasha Palha loses doubles final in Egypt

Natasha Palha inpartnership with Karina Venditti of Brazil was beaten by the top-seeded Anna Morgina and Yana Sizikova of Russia 6-3, 6-2 in the doubles final of the $10,000 ITF women’s tennis tournament in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt.

The 19-year-old Natasha has won two doubles titles this season with Prarthana Thombare in Chennai and Hyderabad.

Roma Chandigarh loses doubles semifinals in ITF juniors event in Colombo

Roma Chandiran in partnership with Watsachol Sawasdee of Thailand lost 4-6, 3-6 to the top-seeded Holly Hutchinson of Britain and Ria Vaidya of Singapore in the girls doubles semifinals of the ITF grade-5 junior tennis tournament in Colombo.

A number of Indian juniors will continue to compete in another tournament in Colombo this week.