The Hindu : Prakash is the player to beat

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Jun 23, 2003

Sport

Sport - Tennis

Prakash is the player to beat

By Kamesh Srinivasan

NEW DELHI JUNE 22. It is the final stretch. It will be a test of your stamina as much as your skill. That observation should hold good only for the rest of the pack, as Prakash Amritraj has built up a huge lead in the race for the maximum ATP points in the ongoing ITF Satellite tennis circuit. Of course, it will be pay-off time when the Masters event begins at DLTA Complex here on Monday.

In the heat and dust, rain and shine, under the bright sun and sparkling floodlights of Mumbai, Chandigarh and Delhi where the first three legs were played in that order, the 19-year-old Prakash had won two singles titles apart from a semifinal to garner 52 circuit points. With a bye in the first round of the Masters, Prakash has already been assured of another five circuit points, which would guarantee him a minimum of 26 ATP points.

So, the young man will only be fighting for four more ATP points, as the maximum possible from the circuit is only 30, apart from the bonus of six for the circuit winner and three for the circuit runner-up.

In simplistic terms, a semifinal appearance would be good enough to fetch 35 ATP points for Prakash. That is a good enough collection these days, when Davis Cuppers Rohan Bopanna and Harsh Mankad are struggling to make a handful of ATP points in Portugal and Britain respectively.

Yet, from whatever we have seen of Prakash Amritraj, we can rest assured that he would not take his foot off the accelerator at this stage of the race. The desire to excel, the passion to play to the best of his ability, and the unquenchable thirst to win, not to forget his ever growing all-round game, make Prakash the one to beat in the Masters event as well.

From the time he played the Tata Open on a wild card in Chennai at the beginning of the year to the present, it has indeed been a long race for Prakash who has been competing at all levels, the Masters series, the Tour events and the Challengers, gauging his growth in the intensely competitive world of professional tennis.

In the current satellite circuit, the second string Indian players have really struggled to match him. Among the four foreigners whom he has met over three weeks, Briton Daniel Kiernan alone has managed to inflict the only defeat on Prakash thus far in this circuit.

After a bye in the first round in a field of 24, Prakash will play the winner of the match between Kedar Tembe and Rohan Gajjar. Vinod Sridhar is the fifth seed in Prakash's quarter.

Prima Simpatiaji of Indonesia and Daniel Kiernan have 33 circuit points each, and along with Vijay Kannan at 28 circuit points, have a mathematical possibility of overtaking Prakash.

Realistically, all these three will be fighting for the second position in the circuit. Kiernan is in the same quarter as the seventh-seeded Mustafa Ghouse. The latter will have the onerous task of matching wits with the winner of the duel between Sunil Kumar and Vishaal Uppal.

Either Sunil or Vishaal will have to rest content with two ATP points, and that is what makes the Satellite circuit a tough exercise. You slog for four weeks and end up getting half ATP point for a week's exercise. But that is the way it is. You have got to take your chances and keep adding the scalps and the circuit points for you to make a booty at the end of four weeks.

Vijay Kannan is in the third quarter along with Takeshi Itoh of Japan, and should aspire for a semifinal berth, unless someone like Ajay Ramaswami starts firing on all cylinders. Vijay will meet the winner of the match between Saurav Panja and Yew-Ming Si of Malaysia.

The second-seeded Prima Simpatiaji, a talented player who has all the qualities to make it big in the professional league, figures in the all-foreigner quarter. He should also fancy his chances for a semifinal berth.

In the doubles, the race is even between four teams. The Amritraj cousins have 48 circuit points, Manoj Mahadevan and Rishi Sridhar have 46, Daniel Kiernan and Ajay Ramaswami have 44 while Vijay Kannan and Saurav Panja have 42 circuit points. Incidentally, all these points convert to 27 ATP points at this stage.

In such a scenario, any team can become the champion, and it will be up to the Asian Games bronze medallists, Mustafa Ghouse and Vishaal Uppal to upset the overall calculation in the doubles. The duo will start against the second-seeded pair of Manoj and Rishi, in the eight-team competition.

Overall, it should be exhilarating action over the next five days in the climax of the Satellite, when Wimbledon would be just about warming up for the main course.

The seedings: 1. Prakash Amritraj, 2. Prima Simpatiaji (Ina), 3. Daniel Kiernan (GBR), 4. Vijay Kannan, 5. Vinod Sridhar, 6. Febi Widhiyanto (Ina), 7. Mustafa Ghouse, 8. Takeshi Itoh (Jpn).

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