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Old 08-20-2017, 09:45 PM   #657
Brian Swartz
Grizzled Veteran
 
Join Date: May 2006
February

World Team Cup

The second round pitted us against Spain, top competition in our group. It started off fiery right away: Ritwik Dudwadkar narrowly beat their best, #6 Martin Zarco, rallying for a 4-6, 3-6, 7-5, 6-4, 6-4 win. Good thing we're on a hardcourt here, because on clay that's probably a loss -- and perhaps the tie as well. We didn't lose another singles set. The doubles didn't go our way, but another 4-1 win to clinch the group was just fine by me. #13 Juan de los Santos proved too far past his prime to pose any real threat.

For Prakash Mooljee, the usual break afterwards ended at the Acapulco 500 a few weeks later. He was shocked there by 7th-seeded American Matthew Panter, a rising player who is still pretty young. Mooljee outplayed him, but didn't convert his chances and Panter thumped 14 aces to sneak by 7-6(7), 6-4. Rather large upset there . That opened the door for Ritwik Dudwadkar, who snagged his first 500-level title ... but barely. He had to rally after losing the first set in the final to Panter, and that was after a final-set tiebreak in the semis against unseeded Swede Valentin Rosenberg. He got there, but the journey wasn't super-impressive.

Anil Mehul spent the same week in India, winning a tier-1 futures to maintain his singles status in the mid-200s. Sushant Chiba found a weak field in a busy week at tier-1 Nonthaburi(Thailand), and a victory there put him back at #3 after he'd slipped to 5th.

Masters-level events for all players were on for the next week.
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