[Brian Swartz]

250s Week

Three events, all 250s, all indoors.

** Kremlin Cup -- Iglar is the top seed, with second-seeded Bjorn Benda the only one relevant to the race. Benda made it to the semis before losing badly to Zakirov, who did well to get to the final against the world no. 2. Unfortunately for Bjorn, this does not add anything to his total for the year -- he needed to make the final to improve.

** Stockholm Open -- Prakash Mooljee was seeded first here. Elias Trulsen dropped out in the quarters, hurting his already basically non-existent chances as the only other player here active in the Race. Guardado gave Mooljee a bit of a match in the quarters, but it was the next round where things got more interesting. 19th-ranked Sava Cirakovic is 3-0 against him, including a third-round win at RG this year in their only professional meeting. Mooljee got off to a bad start but soon rectified that in a straight-sets win. Andronikov was up next in what was an evenly-contested final. Mooljee's serve was a bit better and he played the big points a bit better to get a nice comeback win, 6-7(3), 6-4, 6-3. It was the only match of the tournament where either player lost a set, and a good example of Mooljee's recent turnaround; he's now consistently winning, instead of consistently losing, these kinds of matches where he is the better player but not by enough to avoid giving them chances. This is a nice boost to get the title here, where he also won last season, and should put him in the WTF field for the time being.

** European Open -- Top-seed Davide Poilblan is the only one to notice here. He cruised to the final against Tomas Niklas, where he needed a pair of tiebreak sets to narrowly claim the crown. An expected result, not least of which due to the fact that Poilblan is a skilled indoor player.