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Old 01-22-2016, 03:45 AM   #241
Brian Swartz
Grizzled Veteran
 
Join Date: May 2006
Indian Wells Masters

Girish Girsh had a chance to show young Russian phenom Afasny Bereznity the door in the third round, and did so in rather routine fashion. That meant a matchup with Marcek, the 5-seed, and a good chance for another strong result. He looked good for the win after taking the first set by breaking in the final game, but fell apart after getting behind in the second. In the third set both players had a lot of chances, more than enough for either to take the match by the throat but neither did. Both would rue their missed opportunities, and it was one of those days that would have no real winner, merely a loser and a survivor. Eventually Girsh did get it done in a decisive breaker, 6-4, 2-6, 7-6(3). He was the better player on the day, but only narrowly. Survive and advance as they say though.

Gaskell was expected to be waiting in the quarters, but he was upset by Thiago Herrera. Girsh saves all three break chances he faced in a quite one-sided straight-sets win, and all of a sudden he was in the semis ... against Iglar again. Gave him a fine first set, but after losing the tiebreak, the closest he's come against the legend, it all fell apart in the second. Still another fine run, and he moves past Mockler into a tie for 7th with the plummeting Perry Hogue.

On the other side of the draw, Anil Mehul ensured that rise with a much-tougher-than-expected three-set win over Mockler to reach the semifinals. Once there, he was stunned 7-6(8), 2-6, 6-4 by Bjorn Benda. This wasn't just because Benda is now an inferior player at this point and on hardcourt Mehul should basically own him -- in the underlying numbers he controlled the match. 92-81 in points won, 37% to 26% in total return points ... it was one-sided enough that one would expect a straight-sets win. And yet he lost, now his third out of four and second straight on hardcourt to the supposedly(and actually) declining German. He still edges the head-to-head though, 11-10. Another factor here is that Benda played a lot more coming in, Mehul is not quite up to his best tennis yet -- but if he played a warmup he would indeed risk fatigue, and there's no way Benda will be at his best for Miami now. So it's a situation with no perfect solution really.

Shockingly, Benda went on to upset Iglar, the first hardcourt loss in over a year for the #1, and take his 11th Masters Shield!! He came back from a set down to take a decisive tiebreak, 10-8 in the third set. A better final one could not ask for. It seems he's on a definite resurgence here, now definitely in striking distance to take the #2 spot back from Mehul which seemed totally safe just weeks ago. The next few months just got a lot more complicated ...


Elsewhere ...

Prakash Mooljee bashed through his third amateur tournament, once again without meaningful resistance. He needs only one more to 'graduate' to futures play.
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