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Old 07-18-2016, 06:39 PM   #431
Brian Swartz
Grizzled Veteran
 
Join Date: May 2006
Winston-Salem

Which is in North Carolina by the way, not Connecticut like I idiotically said last time. Why, I don't really know. Anyway, Prakash Mooljee was seeded second here. Caminha was first, but lost badly in the third round to Radek Smitala, the former world no. 6 who has been working his way back into form after missing far too many tournaments and ending up useless earlier in the year. Mooljee yawned his way to the semifinal, where he had a bad serving start and had to rescue three break points in the first two games against another veteran, Sweden's Olav Birkeland. Once he'd done that, he didn't face another and went on to a competitive straight-sets win to make the final. Smitala was there waiting. The 29-year-old is further gone in tennis terms than Mehul is, and Mooljee has the superior overall game. Radek's extreme hard-court focus gave him a chance though ... and he pulled off a nail-biter of an upset, 6-4, 6-7(5), 7-6(5). Overall, the right player won. Mooljee just couldn't do quite enough, consistently enough in the rallies. Just like last week against Herrera, not a disgrace but it would have been nice to get the win here.

Ritwik Dudwadkar entered what ended up being the most packed tier-4 event he's seen all year; he was only seeded 6th in Medan. After dropping his first doubles match against the top seeds, he was promptly upended in the second round of singles, and in stunningly one-sided fashion. 6-3, 6-0, an embarrassing bagel against unseeded clay-courter Davide Checcinato of Italy. Checcinato came in 258th, not that far behind Dudwadkar, so it's really not that horrifying of a loss ... this was just a tournament that had a tier-3 quality field for whatever reason. Dudwadkar will only get a couple weeks off now, and then he'll be back out.

Coming Up ...

The USO is here now, and perhaps more so than usual, much is riding on it.
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