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February/March
World Team Cup, Round Two
Time to tango with Spain again. It's all about Martin Zarco here, and of course it's on the 2nd-ranked player's favorite surface; clay. Santos is ranked 40th, so he's no issue. We beat him twice, lose in doubles with Mehul/Suksma. As anticipated, it all comes down to Dudwadkar v. Zarco on Thursday; we trail 2-1 going in. It's another epic, but this time Ritwik comes out on top, 6-3, 7-6(4), 1-6, 5-7, 6-3. Almost collapsed there but got it done at the end. Zarco takes the points comparison 170-169. It pretty much was that close; and by that margin we beat the world champions 3-2. See you later in the year guys. Most likely, anyway.
Ritwik Dudwadkar also played several weeks later in Dubai(500). Nikitin in the semis and Blake in the final(7-5, 6-4) were quality opponents, but he claims the title in a good warm-up for the HC masters. Prakash Mooljee headed to Acapulco(500, Clay) the same week -- and he managed to thoroughly embarrass himself in a 6-1, 6-2 SF loss to Valentin Rosenberg -- who isn't even much of clay player. Egads. The Swede went on to win the title over Teng, but still not a good moment. Anil Mehul won a tier-2 futures in Venezuela, then in a tier-3 Challenger in Brazil he lost early. Par for the course there. Sushant Chiba's futures career ended the second week of the AO; another tier-1 victory, this one in Iran. That meant making the Challenger leap, and playing both singles and doubles again now as he's probably not ready to make a big splash. After a month off he headed to Florianopolis, same event Mehul played in. First-round doubles exit, beat top-seeded Tristan Benitez(ARG, 31, former #14) in the quarterfinals, but then lost his next match. 3 of 14 BPs, otherwhise he should have had a chance there. Final was 6-3, 7-5. Pretty good first showing, could have been better but quite a nice win over Benitez who is still a Top-50 player.
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