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September
The main thing after the USO is progressing through the knockout rounds of the World Team Cup. First up were the very competitive quarterfinals, with only one tie that didn't go 3-2. That was our 4-1 victory over the Czech Republic, in which a final-day defeat to Milos Schmucker by Ujjaval was the only blemish. He had a surprising four-set upset of Niklas earlier, so we'll call it even. From there we moved on to face Germany indoors in the semifinals. Prakash Mooljee did his job again with two more wins, but we got smacked in doubles, and Shreya Ujjaval won just a single set in each of his matches. Germany pulls off the 3-2 upset, courtesy of established journeyman Espinova and the still-rising star Sigmund Kronecker, Nos. 23 and 12 in the world rankings respectively.
They'll move to face the United States, the only real elite nation left. We've got one top singles(Mooljee) and one top doubles(Dudwadkar) players, but not enough support for them. We'll retain the #1 overall ranking, but won't keep it most likely if we can't bounce back next year.
Ritwik Dudwadkar had one more 'plus' challenger to play before the next big event, and easily won in Mons(indoors), smashing Alenichev in the final. He's up to 35th now, and slowly closing in. Sushant Chiba lost in the final of tier-4 Washington in both brackets, another tournament where fatigue caught up with him. Anil Mehul played and easily won another tier-1 futures tournament in singles, pushing himself back up to about 280th or so.
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