Chennai Open Challenger: Vijay Sundar Prashanth finally breaks ranking points duck

CHENNAI: Four hundred and thirty. That’s the number of days N Vijay Sundar Prashanth endured without winning a single ATP point. The last time he picked up ATP ranking points — the single biggest currency for a tennis player — was on December 2, 2017. It was at a $25000 Futures event in Indonesia. He had lost to South Korea’s Duckhee Lee in the semifinals there but still collected eight points.

Since then, he played 20 events (13 Challengers, four Futures and three Transition Tour meets) without collecting a single point. He had moderate success while playing Futures but because of the new rules coming into play — no ranking points for $15000 competitions — his rankings began to plummet. So much so that the ATP had no choice but to mark his ranking as zero at the turn of the year.

So, it was little wonder that his joy knew no bounds after beating Spaniard Carlos Boluda-Purkiss in the first round of the Chennai Open Challenger on Monday. He’s now assured of three ranking points, a fact that wasn’t lost on him. “It’s true (ranking of zero) because of the new rule,” he told this newspaper.

“Last year I didn’t make any points on the ATP circuit. So I have only ITF points (given for winning Futures-level events). Now that, I will get a rank again, I will again be considered a professional player (smiles).”

Even if he picked self-deprecating humour to address his current predicament, the pain in his voice was evident. “It (the new format) means I won’t get entries into Challengers. I only got a wild card to this because it is being held in Chennai. So outside India, it is going to be very tough. You either have to be inside the top-350 (ATP) or inside the top 80 (ITF). If you are not inside this slab, it will be very tough.”

Straightforward wins

Apart from N Vijay Sundar Prashanth, Arjun Khade and Sumit Nagal also entered Round 2 of men’s singles main draw. Nagal beat David Perez Sanz of Spain 6-3, 6-2. Khade beat Ivan Nedelko of Russia 6-4, 6-1.

Tuesday’s matches

(men’s singles Rd 1, Indians only): Manish Sureshkumar vs Brydan Klein (Gbr); Sasi Kumar Mukund vs Sebastian Fanselow (Ger); Duckhee Lee (Kor) vs Sumit Nagal.

Select Results (Indians unless mentioned)

Qualifying: Alexander Zhurbin (Rus) bt Sidharth Rawat 3-6, 7-5, 6-3; Kaito Uesugi (Jpn) bt Dhakshineswar Suresh 6-1, 6-3.

Rd 1: Arjun Kadhe bt Ivan Nedelko (Rus) 6-4, 6-1; Blake Ellis (Aus) bt Siddharth Vishwakarma 6-2, 6-2; Renta Tokuda (Jpn) bt Abhinav Sanjeev Shanmugam 6-3, 6-4; N Prashanth Vijay Sundar bt Carlos Boluda-Purkiss (Esp) 6-2, 2-6, 6-2; Sumit Nagal bt David Perez Sanz (ESP) 6-3, 6-2.