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Old 05-08-2017, 12:52 AM   #606
Brian Swartz
Grizzled Veteran
 
Join Date: May 2006
Miami Masters

Lots of players were looking to bounce back a couple weeks later. The Mehul/Kroese doubles team was in much better form, smashing their way through higher-ranking teams before meeting their match in the championship final. The 6th-seeded team of Cordovez/Podkopayev had them on the run, but a rally saw Mehul through to a 3-6, 6-2, 10-8 win, narrowly taking the super tiebreak and with it a second Masters in doubles.

Senepathy lost a tight third-set breaker to qualifier Angel Jimenez(ARG), unable to duplicate his success here. There were only a couple of mild third-round upsets, a much more 'to form' path in the early going. Shreya Ujjaval played well but lost in a couple tight sets to Srbulovic. In the fourth round, Guus Dircx exited early again, to Zopp this time, and Mooljee cruised easily. A couple of great matches at the bottom of the bracket; Borja upset last week's champ Fangio in a final-set tiebreak, and Tomas Niklas rallied 4-6, 7-5, 7-5 to put off an upset bid from Besson.

7 of the top 9 players into the quarterfinals then. The first match was the shocker; Kaspar went down again, and this time much easier. It was Luc Janin, almost an afterthought these days at the very top, who blasted him aside fairly easily, saving all seven chances against his serve. It's been well over a hear since Mateo was beaten down like this -- really shocking. He's clearly in a major slump. Elsewhere, Ariel Borja beat Niklas to add another scalp to his tournament.

Both SF matches featured an American crowd favorite against a top-ranked foe. The fans went home happy; Janin bowed out meekly against Johnny Browne, 6-2, 6-3; apparently his best tennis was left in the last match. Borja took down Prakash Mooljee almost as easily. It wasn't a total shock to see Browne lose his second straight final, but the way it happened was pretty stunning. He couldn't do anything against Ariel Borja's serve, getting just 11 points on return for the whole match and failing to get a single break point. Borja emerges as the clear US #2 here, and claims his first Masters at age 23. He's definitely going to bear closer watching now.
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