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The week before the Olympic event, Girish Girsh played in his first futures event(third tier). It was on hardcourt in China, and he benefited from the fact that it was a busy week schedule-wise in garnering the fourth seed. Girsh faced only wild cards and qualifiers en route to the final, stomping all of them with ease. Once there, he faced Russian Felix Demidenko, and won a tighter match but still in straight sets, 6-3, 6-4 to claim the title! Girsh moved up to the low 700s in the rankings after this, and will probably move up to a second-tier futures in his next event.
The week prior to that, there had been an interesting situation as Mehul was entered into a big challenger event in Sopot, Poland. After a couple of wins against low-ranking players, he again met Swede Arvid Hjoch, the same player he had beaten in the epic five-setter in the first round at Wimbledon less than a month prior. Hjoch would normally be the favorite as an extreme clay-court specialist, and probably would have won had he not been mismanaged. In the second week of Wimbledon, just two weeks prior, he had played in and won another big challenger event, taking the crown in both singles and doubles. A job well done, but he needed more time off to play at his best. A player who over-commits will soon find themselves not just suffering in terms of performance but also not learning as much as they otherwhise would from the match. That's exactly what happened as Mehul upset him for the second time, 6-4, 6-4. Hjoch's manager, who goes by the handle of Karma -- I swear I didn't make that up -- is presently ranked 19th, while I am 30th and have pretty much stagnated there for the last several months. I was a little surprised that such a fairly high-ranking manager(there are 124 with a positive score, i.e. more points than you start with by default) made a mistake like this.
Irish veteran James Fenney fell in the semis, and Mehul came up just short of what would have been the biggest title of his career. World no. 36 Cestmir Marcek of Czechoslovakia ended that bid 4-6, 6-4, 7-5. A little disappointing, but it was still huge for Mehul to reach the final of a big clay challenger like this.
2038 Olympics
The day arrived, and history was made as Anil Mehul became the first Sri Lankan to ever participate in the tennis Olympics. In doubles he teamed with usual partner Prakash Nilima and lost a close match in the first round, but that was not unexpected. In singles, his first matchup wasn't a bad one at all, defeating American Pierce Gaskell fairly easily. Australian Arsenio Antuofermo was next, whom Mehul had beaten in a competitive first-rounder at the Miami Masters last spring. This one was tougher, but he eventually prevailed again 6-7(4), 7-5, 6-3 for a comeback win.
Suddenly he found himself in the last 16 of the tournament! This was much more than he had expected coming in, winning one match would have been a success. Croatian (11) Strahina Kecic raced through a quick first set and survived a tight tiebreak to end the fun there, 6-0, 7-6(6). As important and historic as this run was, it will also have far-reaching consequences in Mehul's career. He moved up to a Sri Lanka record 48th after the tournament, the first player ever to crack the Top 50. It also forced him into making a scheduling decision. Continuing to play singles and doubles consistently will put him in a situation like Hjoch where he is overplaying and getting suboptimal results. From the time he entered the tour as a junior, tournaments have primarily served the function of getting him match experience, with the scheduling focus on training to improve.
That will continue to happen, but at this point he has reached the elite of tennis and the most important factor now is results. Anil Mehul will be entering in all the big singles events from here on out throughout at least the rest of his prime, only playing doubles as warranted during 'slow' parts of the season. His next major goal is to reach the Top 30, a ranking which allows for being seeded in Slams and the larger Masters, with the bonus of avoiding the top players until much later in the tournament. Big things are ahead for him if these last couple of events are any proper indication.
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