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Miami
One is a fluke, two is trend, or so they say. And we've definitely got a trend here, involving one Harald Wentz who captures consecutive Masters Shields by defeating Nicolas Perez and John Hart in the final two rounds this time. He outplayed them both as well, and is making a serious statement in the early spring here. Ali Solberg decided to show up for a bit of a run, filling the other semifinal spot.
Jung, Haas, Solheim, and another appearance by Tobias Velilla who nearly got Perez in probably the best match of the tournament round out the QF field. 7-6(5), 5-7, 6-3 was the count in that all-Argentine encounter. Luminaries Hughes (to Haas), L. Perez (to Jung) and Mpakati (to Solberg) all suffered fourth-round defeats, the first two of those very close matches indeed. Srba Dogic continued a decidedly underwhelming year with a third-round match against Stachovsky. He bageled the Russian in the first set … and then dropped a close second and third to fade out. Sheesh.
As for me, Amrik Kasaravalli met Sushant Chiba in the third round for their third official meeting, tied at 1-all. Experience narrowly prevailed, 6-4, 3-6, 6-4, giving Chiba the chance to get straight-setted by Hart. Notable is that both players have almost identical endurance … with Chiba more than six years older. That about says it all in terms of the differences between the two. Sushant made the semis here last year and I knew that wasn't going to happen again - a solid showing by both players as they got as far as they were supposed to, but that's all.
A couple more weeks of practice for the youngsters - there was an event or two with an invitingly weak field, but they weren't fresh enough to be in a position to take advantage of it.
Coming Up ...
Hopefully tomorrow I'll take a look at what's changed over the first quarter of the year, setting the stage for the clay season. The vital group WTC match with Russia also beckons, so we'll soon see if Sri Lanka does indeed emerge from their fearsome Group of Death.
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