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Australian Open: Championship Week
The two double-digit seeds acquitted themselves quite respectfully before exiting stage left in the quarterfinals as anticipated. Ene Cabellero had a competitive straight-sets loss to Faille, and Dominic Stricker also left in three against Xanthos ... but two of the three sets were tiebreakers and it could easily have gone at least four. Jochen Weigle turned back the clock to go into patsy mode against Cananis, but the Urazov-Polychroniadis match went the distance. Form still held, but not before Leon Polychroniadis had a legit scare; 5-7, 6-3, 6-2, 3-6, 6-4 was the scoreline. Not all the quarterfinal losers are equal here; Oleg Urazov won every set the first week and overall had an impressive event.
The semifinals were kind of disappointing overall. Both ended in three sets. Themis Xanthos went more quietly against Faille than Polychroniadis against Renke Cananis, the second match featuring close tiebreaks in the second and third sets. This was the 52nd meeting between the two for those of you scoring at home, Cananis has won three straight on hardcourts while consistently losing on other surfaces, which makes no sense given the similiarities between the players but .. *shrug*.
As for the final, it was just weird. Ben Faille was in cruise control after a 6-0, 6-2 start ... and then a competitive match broke out, the players splitting 6-4 sets as Faille beat Cananis in four. The third set was the only one the French legend-in-the-making lost in the tournament, but the way the match started was just brutally one-sided..
A number of players did well, while others were strange - what is up with the yo-yo Weigle is doing? And Cananis regains, at least for now, the #2 spot. Ben Faille now holds all four Slams and the tour finals and five of the nine Masters, a number that is likely to increase. One way to encapsulate his dominance is this; I have no idea when to expect him to lose again.
Elsewhere ...
Girish Raychaudhari was beyond exhausted by the end of his adventures in the Diourbel JG4, and still won singles while narrowly losing the doubles final. Doesn't look like he's having any problems adjusting to this tier, just needs to grind through a few more events and see what happens.
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