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Old 07-03-2017, 08:13 PM   #637
Brian Swartz
Grizzled Veteran
 
Join Date: May 2006
April

No rankings update as I didn't take note of it at the time.

World Team Cup

With Ujjaval a dead man walking, Mexico was more of a challenge than they would normally be. They couldn't beat Mooljee and we cruised in doubles as well, claiming a perfect record in Group 3 with a 3-2 win here. We'll be indoors for the quarterfinals against #3 Spain. Tough matchup, but off clay I think we've got it. France in the semis(always dangerous because of Kaspar) and the US in the finals is likely our path. Winnable, but far from easy.

Same week, Sushant Chiba headed to Seoul and continued his tier-3 winning ways. Another singles title and runner-up in doubles here. Looking reasonably good.

Monte Carlo

Disaster for Mehul/Kroese who lost in their first match to the still-unseeded Kire/Zopp, straight sets in the second round. For whatever reason, Shyam Senepathy was given a wild-card and had a fine match in the first round, defeating a Hungarian foe 7-5 in a final-set tiebreak. Janin was up next and surrendered just three games, a movie we've seen before. Dudwadkar would not have been seeded and chose not to participate. The hype around Alexey Nikitin grew with a tight 7-6(8), 7-6(4) upset of Guardado for him; he had to qualify here but definitely proved himself. Mooljee easily took care of the young Ukranian in the next round, but it was still a run worth noticing.

Top 8 seeds all made it to the quarterfinals, most of them with ease. The only close match was a topsy-turvy 7-6(6), 2-6, 6-1 win by Zarco over Guus Dircx. Form continued to hold. In the semis, Martin Zarco was blasted aside by Kaspar, while Prakash Mooljee and Fangio had their second meeting of the year. Mooljee had his chances to win this one, with match points late in the third set, but he fell again 3-6, 6-1, 7-6(2). As is usually the case when he's on the short end of these, the Italian pulled out all the stops in the big moments when he needed to. Played a quality final too but the Mateo Kaspar train kept on chugging, 6-4, 6-4. Gillo Fangio is now 2-for-2 on the year against Mooljee, and if that keeps up he will eventually pass him by.

Last edited by Brian Swartz : 07-03-2017 at 08:14 PM.
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