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World Tour Finals
Knoxville, USA
Tour Finals in the United States. I don't think I've seen that before, but I suppose they had to get their turn eventually. The round-robin section went as you might expect; the only part that didn't follow the rankings is Reimann not advancing and Faille moving on, but that's no surprise. It did however seal Ben Faille moving up to the #4 spot at year's end. It's been a grind this year, but he got there.
Marquee matchup in the semifinals was #1 against #2; Leon Polychroniadis vs. Renke Cananis. Cananis cruised 6-2, 6-4, his second win in a row against his Greek rival. The lifetime head-to-head there now stands at 24-19 in favor of Cananis. In the second semi, Faille came up just short against Themis Xanthos, 2-6, 6-4, 7-6(4). It was an excellent final that also went the distance and was determined in a third-set tiebreak. Renke Cananis claimed his fourth consecutive Tour Finals, which is no small feat - I think it's been done only three times before, by the likes of Eric Gorritepe, Mateo Kaspar, and Chris Adams. The three best players ever to grace the tennis courts, and now Cananis can in this way at least be mentioned among them. So weird that he's done that well here .... and yet has just three Slams to his name.
Elsewhere ...
Manoj Datar won his latest futures outing in singles, but lost in the first round of doubles. That's all the results so far, a couple players have events next week.
More importantly, the World Team Cup finals are in a couple weeks, and following that the Playoff rounds. There will some important developments there for Sri Lanka, and we will get a bit of a clearer picture of just how much work there is to do.
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