Prajnesh Gunneswaran on the mend, eyes better showing at Tata Open

It has been a tough few months for India’s top-ranked singles player Prajnesh Gunneswaran, who has had to play through injuries and bereavement.
Prajnesh Gunneswaran will face Yannick Maden in the opening round in Pune
Prajnesh Gunneswaran will face Yannick Maden in the opening round in Pune

PUNE: It has been a tough few months for India’s top-ranked singles player Prajnesh Gunneswaran, who has had to play through injuries and bereavement. Having scaled a career-high ranking of 75 in April, the Chennai player’s 2019 season slowed down as he picked up shoulder and wrist niggles. In November though, weeks before he was to be married, the 30-year-old lost his father, who had been a guiding light of his tennis career. 

Though he got into Australian Open main draw as a lucky loser, he couldn’t seize the opportunity, losing in straight sets to Japanese wildcard entrant Tatsuma Ito in the opening round. “Hurdles have always been in my path, I’m just used to it,” said Gunneswaran, who lost almost five years of his prime due to knee injuries, in Pune on Saturday. “I had personal issues, tennis issues. So, you know, that’s just the way it goes sometimes. And I think I’ve come out of it pretty well. I couldn’t play my best tennis, but things are getting better. And I think my tennis is there.”

The Indian had started the 2019 season strongly, qualifying for the Indian Wells and Miami Masters and making a cut for all the four Grand Slam tournaments. Even though he beat the likes of Benoit Paire (top seed in Pune) and then-world no 18 Nikoloz Basilashvili in Indian Wells, he was unable to maintain the momentum. “When you move up a level, if you don’t play well enough, you’re going to lose matches,” he said. “I was fine with that learning curve. I was obviously trying to understand how much better I needed to play or whether it was just a matter of belief, or I needed to be fitter. Whatever those factors were, the only way to understand what you need is to be there. And I think I was sort of getting the hang of that but unfortunately then once again, I got a little bit injured. First of all the shoulder, then I got my wrist issues in October.”

Gunneswaran will be hoping to put all that behind him and start afresh in Pune, as he takes on Yannick Maden in the opening round. Having trained for years at Germany’s Schuettler-Waske Tennis Academy, Gunneswaran said he will tap into his coaches in the European country and see if he can formulate a game plan for Maden. The only time the two met, at a Futures event in Furth in 2016 on clay, Maden beat the Indian 6-4, 6-4. But Gunneswaran is a much-improved player and will, along with Indian contingent at the event, look to make a mark at the Pune ATP. 

Even win it? “Hopefully,” he said, dead serious. “Definitely can be done.” “The week has changed,” said the Indian, about Pune shifting from a season opener to the first week of February, which falls right after the Australian Open. “Obviously the field is weaker because it’s not before Australia.  It’s a standalone tournament. But that’s good for the Indians because it gives us an opportunity to maybe make the most of it, hopefully, either some of us or all of us sort of go a few rounds and you know, make some points and give us like a springboard to move on to bigger tournaments.”It is the first time that five Indians, including three wildcards — Ramkumar Ramanathan (ranked 185), Sasikumar Mukund (267) and local lad Arjun Kadhe (618) — have been in the main draw of India’s only ATP event.

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