[Brian Swartz]

Indian Wells

Shreya Ujjaval went out there and lost in the first round 6-2, 7-5 to rising American Phillip Carter. Good on his manager though who evidently got the memo and gave him some time off to practice afterwards: we won't be reporting on him in Miami.

Girish Girsh brushed off all competition in the first week including Kinczllers in the fourth round, then had Benda again in the quarters. After a pretty epic tiebreak in the first set, he failed against the German narrowly again, 7-6(10), 6-7(4), 6-4. A narrow defeat, but the better player did win and it's two already down against Benda this year.

Anil Mehul rolled his way until running into Radek Smitala, easily the toughest possible opponent, in the fourth round. Smitala's first win came last year in the Shanghai quarters; unfortunately he proved it wasn't a fluke with a narrow 7-6(5), 7-6(5) upset here as well. Mehul probably should have won, but it was basically a coin-flip battle and the fact that he wasn't quite up to maximum condition yet was definitely a factor. Unfortunately, this will keep him from being at his best for Miami. So much for the best-laid plans ...

Of more immediate and also lasting consequence is the fact that this basically handed the keys to the #1 ranking to Antonin Iglar. He bashed his way to a 19th Masters Shield without the loss of a set. That was not a surprise so much as who he faced. Smitala went on to smother Benda in straight sets, not allowing so much as a break point. If you told me Radek would be a Masters finalist a year or two ago I would have suggested a mental health professional.

The fallout from all this is that Mehul's time at the top ends at 17 weeks. That's probably going to be it, he could have regained the top spot in Miami if he'd made it further here, but now he would need to win the title to take #1 back and that seems unlikely with Iglar looking like he's re-established dominance. Still, it's 17 weeks more than I ever expected him to get, and he's still clearly the second-best player in the world right now. Time to regroup.

Meanwhile, Girsh slips below Gaskell to 6th place and another semifinal run by Marcek lengthens his lead on both of them. Radek Smitala's first final at any big event has him up to 8th. I don't think he'll rise much longer but it does beg the question as to whether he can back up this performance. One thing's for certain, Indian Wells shook things up a little with things not going exactly as planned. Not the best week for my guys but it's definitely a reminded that there's a reason why the pundits don't play the matches.

All four of my players are in action during the first week of Miami, with Prakash Mooljee getting his first challenger tournament underway, a tier-3 indoor event in Bath. He's been looking increasingly good against the type of competition he's likely to face there, and a number of factors point to the fact that it is finally time for him to make the jump. Here's hoping he's ready ...