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World Team Cup, Group 3, Third Round
Sri Lanka(5th) vs. Denmark(19th), Grass
Monday: A. Mehul d. F. Klitgaard, 6-2, 6-4, 6-0
Tuesday: G. Girsh d. J. Petersen, 6-4, 7-6(5), 6-1
Wednesday: J. Petersen/C. Daamsgard d. S. Ujjaval/R. Kuttikad, 7-6(4), 6-1, 6-1
Thursday: A. Mehul d. J. Petersen, 6-4, 6-2, 6-4
Friday: G. Girsh d. F. Klitgaard, 6-0, 6-1, 6-0
Sri Lanka defeats Denmark, 4-1!!
Every tie ended with the same score for us, and we advance to the quarterfinals as unbeaten Group 3 champions, roughly tied with the United States as the most dominant in group play so far. We stay in 5th place behind Germany as events in the JTC saw them gain some points, while the Czechs plummeted due to their failures in the juniors to well back of the US for the #1 spot.
Germany edged Italy 3-2 to claim the second spot and make the quarterfinals as well. Three were some interesting goings-on elsewhere also. In Group 1, Trulsen led 11th-ranked Sweden to an undefeated showing, and Spain advanced as well, far from the embarassment of last year when they had to endure a playoff to stay up. The Swedes have an aging Birkeland and nobody looking ready to come up to replace him, but Trulsen will at least keep them afloat for a few years. Group 2 saw the Czechs sweep to victory, with chaos behind them. France crushed Mexico ... who beat Argentina ... who then beat France. That leaves all three of them with one win each, but France held the tiebreaker which I think is total matches won, so they get the spot and the third-ranked Argentines are swept out early. Group 4 saw a fine performance by the US, with Peru getting the deciding tie against Russia on their favored clay and taking an easy victory to advance.
Our quarterfinal opponent will be the French on grass; they are improving and are pretty good grass players but we should get through them. Sweden and Peru is the other pairing on our side of the bracket, and the only way we lose against either of them is if Peru gets through and draws clay. We've got an easy path to the final again. The other side has the Czechs and Spaniards, then the USA and Germany. Most likely the US and Czech Republic battle it out to see who gets us in the final again. Smart money is going to be on Iglar.
Elsewhere ...
Ritwik Dudwadkar had his best tournament to date this week. He seems to have gotten enough consistency on his serve now to have an advantadge in throwing far fewer double-faults than his opponent. His first-ever singles win was in qualifying over Hungary's Boris Balzar, an easy win 6-3, 6-2. He faced 2nd-seeded Czech Libor Polzar, ranked just inside the Top 300, and acquitted himself well in a 7-6(5), 6-3 loss. If this week was any indication, he should be ready to start getting a few consistent results and move up. In doubles he didn't have to qualify this week which was a first, and suprisingly was part of the winning team!
Coming Up ...
Mehul will be off until Madrid in a few weeks, while Girsh is slated to be the top seed at Monte Carlo. The next ten players behind him in the rankings are all playing though, so it won't be like there's no competition -- it's just the top three skipping it. Gustavo Caratti or one of the Herrera's is my pick to take it this year. Mooljee has had a couple weeks off and will be taking another month at least; he won't be back out there until at least Madrid, and maybe not until Rome, playing a challenger at least one of those weeks. Dudwadkar's good week has earned him a little more time off than usual, he'll take three weeks to train and continue to improve before going back out there. Overall it's another break in the schedule other than our lone participant at Monte Carlo, and then it will all pick up again at Madrid.
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