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World Team Cup Level 2 Group 3 First Round
Sri Lanka vs. Romania(Indoor)
Monday: A. Mehul d. H. Prunea, 6-0, 6-0, 6-0
Tuesday: O. Funar d. A. Chittoor, 6-4, 6-4, 6-2
Wednesday: O.Kammerer/B. Miklos d. A.Mehul/A. Chittoor, 2-6, 4-6, 6-4, 6-3, 13-11
Thursday: A. Mehul d. O. Funar, 6-2, 3-6, 6-0, 6-1
Friday: A. Chittoor d. H. Prunea, 6-2, 6-3, 6-4
Sri Lanka defeats Romania 3-2!
There was a lot more drama here than expected, or for that matter more than I desired as well. After a triple-bagel start by Mehul, Chittoor showed up out of match shape as expected and got himself upset. Then in the doubles, I thought it was over when we were up two sets to none and came back to find us serving for the match at 8-7 in the fifth! After saving three break points and also blowing two match points, we were broken only to break again and serve for it at 9-8. This repeated at 10-9, and 11-10, until finally the Romanians held and took the match in an absurd comeback. When you have four chances to serve for it and can't get it done, you bloody well deserve to lose. How utterly ridiculous, an absolutely absurd loss.
Down 2-1 at that point, it was an open question whether we would even win the tie. Other than the second set Mehul was strong again in his second singles match, and by Friday Chittoor was back to a decent level of play and got a solid win in the decider to put us through. Funar is better than we thought -- Romania might well be good enough to stick in Level 2 now, but frankly we should not have lost either of the rubbers that we did. Chittoor probably still wins if he's ready to play, and the doubles loss is just really beyond words. It probably should have been a 5-0 skunking, but at least we got the victory in the tie which is the most important thing in the final analysis.
Sri Lanka is now bumped up a couple of spots to 41st, tying our high from last year at the end of group competition. Israel also went the distance in edging the Slovak Republic 3-2, and we'll get them next, again on an indoor court. That at least is a nice bit of fortune. The winner of that tie will be assured a place in the quarterfinals no matter what happens in the third round.
Three weeks now until the Australian Open. Mehul has enough matches in that he'll skip the 250s in those weeks; that'll result in the loss of 105 points as he made the Brisbane final last year, but it's the best way to set himself up for a deep run in Australia and that's far more important. Girsh will be heading to a loaded tier-1 challenger in Sao Paolo: there are two tier-1s as the only challengers prior to the AO and he needs to get a few matches in. They have almost as strong a field as the 250s: this time of year is crazy with almost everyone scrambling to get in the right amount of tournament play. He won't be in the seeds so he'll have to hope for a decent draw.
At any rate, Girsh's AO debut will be on the cards and Mehul will be looking to improve on last year's career-best 4th-round finish, while Mooljee will be taking an extended break here to train and let things settle out in the junior ranks.
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