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Cincinatti Masters
We got a traditional power final, with Nicolas Perez beating up on an exhausted John Hart, 6-2, 6-4. That's about all that was traditional about this tournament though. There were five unseeded quarterfinalists. It was so weird that former #10 Nintau Ariyanuntaka qualified and made it that far just because lolrandom I guess. Back in his heyday, which is long past, he made only three Masters QFs, and never got any further. Acke Kjaerstad and Harald Wentz would make the semis to shake things up, while Jung and hometown hero Gregory Gulley were the others. Barry Molyneaux didn't completely suck in front of his fans, rounding out the final eight.
Every tournament right now is like a box of chocolates - you never know what you're going to get. Except that established Top-Teners like Solheim, Solberg, Dogic, etc. probably aren't going to do diddly squat. Sushant Chiba equaled his showing from last week and his points from a year ago, getting to the third round before losing to Wentz. Was even through two sets, then ate a breadstick in a bad third. Amrik Kasaravalli got through a match this time, then a pretty comprehensive straight-sets loss to Hart in the second round. No complaints there.
Elsewhere, when I entered CH2 Samarkand with the youngsters, it looked like Nasir Chittoor would be the #2 seed. Turns out he was sixth, and in the quarter of the one guy I didn't want him to play. Foiled by a bunch of late entries, turns out I probably would have been better playing CH3 Binghamton. The QF matchup against Willy Weigl(AUS, 60th) was the stuff that nightmares are made of: 6-0, 6-1. Satyagit Guha won one qualifying match before losing a second, but we did better in doubles this time. Qualified and reached the semis before a close loss there. So both players had at least a pretty good amount of matches for the week.
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