|
I had the next update here about done a few days ago, accidentally erased it, and then had the usual rage-quit not wanting to rewrite it followed by procrastination. Time to catch up again.
Indian Wells Masters
A tough road for Mehul/Kroese here, but ultimately a successful one. They narrowly escaped the Phillipino Rhodes brothers 11-9 in a tight super-TB in the quarterfinals. The rising Srbulovic/Zopp team also pushed them the distance but couldn't prevail, and (2)Yumashev/Arendt took the first set to a close breaker before eventually falling. The doubles scene remains competitive, and Mehul's duo has slipped to third overall but they are close behind.
Shyam Senepathy started out with a close win over a qualifier, then went away with a pair of breadsticks against Niklas. I don't remember if I reported this before, but the manager for Shreya Ujjaval has disappeared, so he's fading from the scene prematurely and did not show up. The Americans looked good in front of their home fans, with three of four early upsets credited to them: Cone, Blake, and Bayliss. All solid but not spectacular players who got the better of fairly low seeds in the second round. Dudwadkar met another one, Roger Calzada, and dropped a set before dominating the third to move on. He was seeded 20th here, several spots up from his ranking as there were a lot of mid-level absences.
In the third, there weren't a lot more surprises. Guardado and Janin both had close calls but made it through. Ritwik Dudwadkar went up against Fangio again and managed to take a set this time -- but he was dominated in the other two. Not a surprise there. Vinnie Cone kept on trucking by eliminating Kronecker. By contrast, the round of 16 was utter chaos. At least, that was the case on the bottom half of the draw, and it could been on the top. Dircx traded tiebreaks with Hsuang-tsung Teng before closing out a matchup of rising stars with a strong finish. Cone's run ended at the hands of the master Kaspar, while Browne and Borja kept going barely. It seems only the crowd saved them. In the other half, Prakash Mooljee was stunned again by Tomas Niklas who seems to have found a fountain of youth, 3-6, 6-4, 6-2. Cojanovic over Zarco, Guardado over Gillo Fangio in a 9-7 deciding tiebreak, and Luc Janin was a comeback victim of Jolland.
All in all, Niklas was the top seed on the bottom at 11th going into the quarterfinals, while on the upper half everyone was here who was supposed to be. Strange situation. Mateo Kaspar blitzed Dircx, and in a 4-5 matchup of US players Johnny Browne showed he has the upper hand still over Borja. Close matches down below as well with Niklas and Jake Jolland getting through in straight sets. Naturally Kaspar pushed through again in the semis, though Browne at least made him work a bit. Niklas-Jolland was a real barn-burner, but the veteran Czech eventually prevailed 6-3, 5-7, 7-5. That put him in his first Masters or better final in about two and a half years. He gave the legend as good of resistance as he had all tournament, which isn't saying much: 6-3, 6-4. Tomas moves back into the Top 10, and the margin at the top is growing to obscene, historic levels.
|