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Re: Chiba and the #2 - I'd already lost 200 points with the 250 results, and if I'd gone out in even the QFs, I would have lost most of the cushion I had on the 3-5 spots.
As it is, things worked out pretty well. After a bad first set, he rallied to beat Ali Solberg in four despite getting severely out-aced. 2nd and 4th sets were tiebreaks, so the mental game came up big there to get the win. Then it was John Hart in the final. He hadn't lost a set all tournament - and still didn't, claiming a 7-6(5), 6-1, 6-4 victory. I think Hart is going to rip the tour a new one for the next couple of years and potentially post a couple of historically great seasons. That's partly because he's an excellent player, and partly because nobody else is better than 'very good'. The Irish champion holds four of the five big titles right now, last year's early USO loss being the lone exception. And, one would think, a rare one. I don't see him going unbeaten or anything like that, but he's going to be tough to defeat in a 5-set format, regardless of surface.
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