Ramkumar Ramanathan is one of the most promising young juniors in the country. This year has been quite hectic for the 16-year-old as he has been competing in more than 20 international men's Futures tournaments being based in Spain.
The TNTA-SAIL International Tennis Federation $10,000 men's Futures tournament beginning at the SDAT-Nungambakkam Stadium here on Monday, will be Ramkumar's first men's Futures event at home.
“Seriously, there no pressure on me. I enjoyed my tennis in Spain competing in 25 tournaments,” said Ramkumar, who reached a men's singles semifinals in Morocco and clinched a doubles title in Spain in the year 2011. Sriram Balaji will challenge Ramkumar in the first round.
However, for the eight seeded players, there will be some sort of expectations. One among them is Rohan Gajjar. The 27-year-old, whose career has been blighted by injuries, will be keen to do his best. “I am fitter than ever before and playing well. Let's see,” said the third seed.
Junn Mitsuhashi of Japan, seeded first and ranked 385 in the world will take on Spain's Jaime Pulgar-Garcia in the first round while V.M. Ranjeet, seeded two, will face Saurabh Patil. Vijay Sundar Prashanth, the fifth seed, will meet Kaza Vinayak Sharma. Karunuday Singh, seeded seventh, will meet China's Yu Chang.
The second leg of the Futures event will be held in Pune, followed by Delhi and Chandigarh.
The qualifying results (Indians unless otherwise mentioned):
Second round: Sumeet Shinde bt Pulkit Misra 7-6(1), 6-3, Ritwik Anand bt Saneesh Mani Mishra 6-1, 6-0, Siddarth Rawat bt Sagar Ahuja 6-2, 6-2; U.M. Gugan Varma bt Balaji Lakshmanan 6-4, 6-3;
Sunil Kumar Sipaeya bt Adwait Sadwilkar 7-6(6), 6-3; Michael Muff (Sui) bt Neishit Vakil 6-2, 6-0; Hector Ruiz Cadenas (Esp) bt Kunal Anand 6-3, 6-1; Jason Jung (US) bt Yash Deshpande 6-3, 6-0.
Saurabh Singh bt Ajai Selvaraj 3-6, 6-4, 3-2 (conceded); Tejas Chakulkar bt Vikram Naidu 6-2, 6-0; Arun Prakash Rajagopalan bt Kumara P.Saradhi Adavelly 6-2, 6-1; Ronak Manuja bt Fariz Mohammed 7-5, 6-2; Shahbaaz Khan bt Shahul Anwar 6-1, 4-6, 6-4.
Gregory Howe (Gbr) bt Jatin Dahiya 6-4, 6-3; Rakshay Thakkar bt Mohammed Ashraf 6-2, 6-2; Bharat Ram Balajee bt Prasad Apte 6-0, 6-0.
