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2053 Australian Open
Form held on the doubles side. Mehul/Kroese, seeded #2, beat the 3-seeds in a close semifinal but lost after taking the first set to top-ranked Aspelin/Cordasic. I imagine we'll see a lot of that this year.
On the singles side there was high drama for Sri Lanka right away. Shyam Senepathy had the most epic match and arguably his biggest moment as a pro ever in the first round. Young 28th-seed Ruben Piazzola was the opponent for a match that seemed like it would never end. Unexpectedly Senepathy pulled off a marathon upset, 7-6(5), 3-6, 5-7, 7-6(4), 13-11. He could have lost it at so many moments. 447 points were played, and other matches delayed waiting for it to finish. Meanwhile, Ujjaval dropped a pair of 6-2 sets against a qualifier before rallying to avoid disaster in his match. When it was all over, we had four players in the second round. That's a job well done; it's been a while since that happened in a Slam.
Shreya Ujjaval's reprieve didn't last long; he was dumped in the next match by American Dick Blake. So much you can do with that name ... Blake is a meteoric 20-year-old who is making his push to do something with his career. Senepathy also lost in four, to journeyman Muhammad Bedriddin of Germany. A fair number of lower seeds also were gone by now. There were some tough third-round matches but form mostly held. Ritwik Dudwadkar had an interesting potential opportunity, with #10 Sigmund Kronecker awaiting. Kronecker is notoriously poor on hardcourts, which made this an even match at worst. Dudwadkar didn't play great, but just well enough to steal a match that went the distance with good play on break opportunities. 6-7(2), 6-2, 3-6, 6-3, 6-4 was the scoreline, and for the second straight event a big win over a Top-10 player to give him his best result ever. Meanwhile the top players kept right on rolling.
The top half of draw still held no surprises, as all the favored seeds kept pressing on. There were a couple on the bottom though. Janin lost to Hsuang-tsung Teng in four sets; my prediction that Teng would need another year of seasoning just might need a little revision. Meanwhile Ariel Borja narrowly escaped Cojanovic, who has turned back the clock with a nice run here. 9-7 in the 5th in that one. Guess who Dudwadkar went up against? That's right, it was Fangio again. 3, 2, and 1. Hasta la bye bye.
The quarterfinals had 7 of the top 8, plus Teng. He pushed Prakash Mooljee a bit, but after a pair of tiebreaks went our way it was still a straight-set result. Ever the dominant force, Kaspar lost just three games total to Martin Zarco in a humiliating beat-down, while Gillo Fangio made short work of Dircx. An All-American matchup proved the best entertainment, withi Johnny Browne coming up short against his younger countryman Borja, 7-5, 6-3, 6-7(5), 6-2.
Mateo Kaspar lost his first set of the tournament against Fangio in the semifinals ... but only one. A credible effort including 15 aces for the Italian, but overmatched again. Straights once again for Mooljee over Ariel Borja, and he goes into the final unblemished. Put up a decent fight to. And lost of course. 6-4, 7-6(6), 6-3. Nearly got a set off the legend, but the gap grows ever wider. Kaspar's 7th Slam puts him in a big tie for 8th all-time, which he'll doubtlessly break later this year.
With Mooljee in the final and Dudwadkar reaching the 4th round, I couldn't ask for more here.
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