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Indian Wells
This one ... didn't go as planned. The battle of titans never materialized, with Harald Wentz taking his first Masters crown and leaping up to #7, defeating Chisulo Mpakati in a hotly-contested 6-4, 4-6, 7-6(4) final match. Mpakati made the final in Cincy last year, but is still searching for his first hardware in a big event.
Il-Sung Jung and Srba Dogic, both strong hardcourt players, were losing semifinalists in close matches. The finalists knocked out power couple members Perez and Hart respectively in competitive straight-set wins in the quarterfinals. Also falling there were surprises Harald Balzer who refuses to completely go away, and the increasingly impressive Argentine (22) Tobias Velilla.
One step further back you find Seamus Hughes, fourth-round upset victim against Velilla, and also my pair. Sushant Chiba had a nice, close win over 10th-seeded Haas before Perez showed him the door, while Amrik Kasaravalli had a good draw that almost went south - and should have. Aviles continued his poor performance off of clay with a loss to American Jaak Christ, but Christ with a home advantadge should have been able to beat Kasaravalli. He definitely outplayed him, but Amrik eked out a 6-4, 2-6, 7-6(5) win that he didn't really deserve. His fourth-round defeat came in dual tiebreaks at the hands of Jung.
It wasn't that close but there were only two BP total in the match - both converted, one by each player - so that gave him a chance.
Overall, a good showing for me and in the big picture a couple of things happened. If you were looking for a big changing of the guard moment, I think this was it. We've now got Mpakati/Jung/Wentz in the 5-8 spots, and they'll be much more likely to appear at the business end of tournaments. Their time is no longer a speculated thing in the future - it is now. Solheim is off the first page, Solberg and Molyneaux appear to be following them shortly. Meanwhile 3-5 have never won a Masters, but 6-9 have. That part though figures to change soon. And then Nicolas Perez ascends in highly anticlimactic fashion to the spot of #1 in the world at 24 and a half years of age. John Hart held the spot for almost four years. It's not a sure thing that he won't get it back briefly but I'd say the odds are not in his favor. I'll have a more full accounting of his time at the top further on down the road, but a polite round of applause would seem to be in order for the deposed champion.
Elsewhere ...
Ranked just slightly too high for doubles, Satyagit Guha had a singles-only FT3 in Mexico. A 3-set QF loss to South Africa's Brian Conrad ended that a little sooner than I wished. Guha is close to breaking through as a consistently successful futures player, but has rare opportunities at it and isn't a dominant force down there just yet. The next week, Nasir Chittoor joined him in CH2 Rabat. Chittoor made the quarters before getting his medicine soundly served by Top 50 Manuel Iruso. A doubles title that was a breeze until the final gave both of them a good reason for showing up though.
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