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Paris Masters
Girish Girsh got through his first match easily, leaving the success of the final Masters for him up to a third-round encounter with Perry Mockler. Mockler had disappointingly come back from a set down against him just a few months ago in Canada which was their first-ever meeting. Girsh settled that score here 6-4, 6-3, in a surprisingly dominant showing without a single break point allowed. Advancing to his second big quarterfinal of the year, he was sure to see it ended against Benda. He managed to push the first set to a tiebreak though, and won it surprisingly easily to upend the script. Two sets later, he'd claimed a solid but close win, a huge upset over the world no. 3 and definitely the biggest win of his career to date, 7-6(1), 4-6, 6-3! The German former no. 1 is definitely not at his best indoors but he was much the fresher player and still is more skilled and athletic even at his age. Iglar was up next in the semifinals, and while he dispatched Girsh in straight sets for the sixth time in as many meetings, it was their closest match yet. A fine way to close out the season for Girsh!
Anil Mehul basically yawned his way through the draw; he is now far better than almost all competition on this surface. T. Herrera, Alvarez, and shocking semifinalist John Condon all went down easily. Condon won only a single game after having dumped both Gaskell and Hogue in a pair of massive upsets for him -- the Phillipine star had never in his career made the quarterfinals of any big event off of clay up to this point. And so it was yet another final against Iglar. He didn't play badly at all but was the more fatigued player and his serve deserted him too often in a 6-3, 5-7, 6-2 loss. New chapter, same script.
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