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So Chiba just pulled one completely out of his arse. Roland Garros third round, first real chance to blow this tournament, facing off against (23) Clavette Moniotte of France. So home crowd against us again, and I also debated between playing a 250 the week before and decided to just play doubles here. Wrong choice, losing quickly in the first round to get just one match out of it, and I needed more than that.
Score was 7-5, 1-6 after two and down a break at 3-5 in the third, Chiba holds and breaks to love as Moniotte serves for the set. We go to a tiebreak. Down an early minibreak, Sushant rallies to even it up, and then takes the narrow 7-5 decision at the first set point chance. Fourth set is pretty even, another tiebreak. Chiba loses the first three points, and also trailed 5-2, a pair of minibreaks with the Frenchman serving. So naturally we're going to five … but somehow Sushant reels off the next five points to win this match in four, 7-5, 1-6, 7-6(5), 7-6(5). Match stats dead-even for the most part, 136 points apiece. This could very easily have ended here … but he lives to play another day. Stachovsky, not the best clay-courter to put it charitably, is up next. If we get by that, it's probably Hughes in the QFs and that would a tough one at best.
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