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Old 04-03-2017, 11:20 PM   #596
Brian Swartz
Grizzled Veteran
 
Join Date: May 2006
2051 Wimbledon

A little better showing here than at RG, as we had four entrants. Shyam Senepathy lost in a close straight-sets match, but Mooljee, Ujjaval, and Mehul all easily won in the opening round. Cypriot Alberto Sartzetakis pulled off the biggest upset, knocking out Agustin Herrera(30) in five sets. He took down another Herrera in the next round, again going the distance. Quite a tournament for Sartzetakis. Anil Mehul did well to push Fangio to four sets but he was never going to win that matchup. Andronikov had an absolutely horrid showing, winning just five games against German Andre Feimer ... he is really crashing. There were a couple of epic matches in which lower seeds just survived; Blagota Cojanovic (20)was pushed to 9-7 in the 5th, 10-8 for young Ruslan Strelkov(27).

The third round didn't bring many surprises either. The one big one was a doozy though. Third-ranked Gillo Fangio was stunned by Guus Dircx in straight sets, winning just nine games and getting totally dominated. Dircx is definitely on his way up, but not to that stratosphere; I totally didn't see it coming. Cirakovic beat Guardado, 11-9 in the 5th, and Zarco had a match go nearly that long, but neither result was shocking.

Finishing up the first week, Shreya Ujjaval met his end against Niklas; he had a chance to win a couple of sets but came up empty. A quite respectable showing for him though to still make the last 16. Mooljee had his first test against Ariel Borja(17), getting through in three but he had to work a little for it. The top half of the draw had a couple of quite interesting matches. Dircx kept going, knocking out Martin Zarco in a hard-fought four, while Juan de los Santos(7) kept the dream alive for Spain with a riveting rally over 9th-seeded Besson, 4-6, 4-6, 6-4, 7-6(8), 8-6.

Dircx is the lone party-crasher in the quarterfinals, everyone else was a Top 8 seed. Kaspar knocked out Luc Janin in another tough draw for the Canadian, straight sets but it was a tight match. Dircx kept the magic going against Santos, and he's been a master of the tiebreaks all tournament; he won all three in a four-set win here. Prakash Mooljee fell early, victimized by the big serve of Johnny Browne(6), 7-5, 5-7, 7-6(5), 6-4. Mooljee was right there with him step for step most of the way, but couldn't match the firepower of 25 aces and in pivotal moments that was the difference. Khasan Zakirov isn't often mentioned as a big threat these days, but he easily beat Niklas in another surprise.

So it was sort of Kaspar and the misfits in the semifinals. He's a prohibitive favorite against three players who are thrilled to make it this far. Guus Dircx gave him two tough sets but then fell off when he couldn't break through; Browne and Zakirov gave the fans a very lengthy second match, taking 412 points to resolve; the American is the master of the five-setter and he prevailed again, 12-10 in the finale. In the title match, Mateo Kaspar found himself down two sets early. He rallied to force another 5th ... but Browne somehow had the energy to win it, a stunning upset. He's an accomplished grass-court player, but his results this year prior to this have not been inspiring, and attention has been focused on the Kaspar/Fangio/Janin trio. Despite his lack of results elsewhere he now holds two of the four Slams, moving himself back up to 4th in the rankings.

Elsewhere ...

Ritwik Dudwadkar was runner-up to #35 Manee Paschal at tier-3 Winnetka, once again showing that he is not yet ready for the next step. Sushant Chiba was forced to choke down a pair of breadsticks in a terrible first-round exit in his next outing, but he did manage to win the title in doubles so it wasn't a totally wasted week for him.
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