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Old 05-05-2015, 12:49 PM   #10
Brian Swartz
Grizzled Veteran
 
Join Date: May 2006
A couple notes that happened before this week's event first. Anil Manohar, who has all he can do to stay in the Top 500 these days, made the final at an F2(Tier 2 Futures) event in Lithuania, while Amrik Chittoor lost in the QF at a CH2(Tier 2 Challenger) tournament to Perry Mockler(USA, 88th).

This week, while the Masters was going on, Girish Girsh was in his second amateur tournament which ended up not faring as well. He was the 14-seed this time, and waltzed through to the semifinals where he met up with American Joseph Skirrow, an 18-year-old at basically the same point in his career. Skirrow defeated him there in a competitive three-setter, 3-6, 7-6(4), 6-3.

2038 Indian Wells Masters

This was the debut in terms of Masters events for Amrik Chittoor, while Anil Mehul played here last year, losing in the first round. Chittoor played his way through three rounds of qualifying successfully, only to be defeated in the first round of the main draw by 82nd-ranked Slovakian Cestmir Dsiadosz, 6-3, 7-6(3).

Mehul fared better this year. He not only won his first Masters match, but handed out a bagel in doing so. In the second round, Loke Borrman(SWE, 27th) was one of the biggest scalps he's ever taken in a 6-4, 6-4 win. Next up was Spasoje Kucerovic of Serbia, the 7th-ranked player in the world. Anil has been winning more and more against players outside of the Top 20 and gradually sliding up the rankings to 69th going into this week, but against the very best of the Top 10 he's still winless. Kucerovic has a better serve and is much stronger physically, though he's not particularly adept at hard-court play. After a dominant first set by the Serbian it was a tough battle the rest of the way with the favorite eventually triumphing 6-1, 7-6(4), 6-7(6). 8-6 in a final-set tiebreak is about as close as you can come to winning without actually doing it. It wouldn't surprise me at all to see Anil Mehul get a Top 10 victory before the year is out the way he's been going.

After a week off, Mehul and Chittoor will head to Miami for the second of early US Masters events.
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