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Old 03-24-2017, 07:35 AM   #592
Brian Swartz
Grizzled Veteran
 
Join Date: May 2006
Madrid Masters

Started off with a thud for Sri Lanka. Anil Mehul was blasted in the first round by Jolland, and Shyam Senepathy qualified but quickly exited against Davide Poilblan. Girish Girsh was MIA, and not for the first week; looks like his manager has gone AWOL. Rough way for him to go out. Early exits for Kire Zopp(9) and young Guus Dirckx(16), while everyone else moved on.

In the third round, another Sri Lanka eliminator with Mooljee crushing Shreya Ujjaval. Janin and Niklas were both pushed to three sets but advanced. Sigmund Kronecker was the big story, having already beat Dirckx and now taking out 5th-ranked Johnny Browne to keep moving on. He was the only party-crasher in the quarterfinals with 7 of the top 8 making it there once again. Couldn't get past Gillo Fangio though. Favorites Kaspar and Niklas also kept going, while Prakash Mooljee got flat-out humiliated 6-3, 6-0 by Janin. I came in here thinking Mooljee might still be the best clay player in the world. That appears to be ... optimistic, to put it kindly.

Luc Janin pushed past Niklas in one routine semi, while Fangio came up with a mild upset over Mateo Kaspar, 1-6, 6-4, 6-3. That broke a three-match losing streak between the two, with many more to come. Fangio had just enough to win a tight final, claiming his second Masters Shield and strengthening his grip on the world no. 3 spot.

Ritwik Dudwadkar entered a small challenger in Zagreb, easily winning in singles but going nowhere in doubles. That was enough for him to take a few weeks off.
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