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Canada
First leg of the hardcourt swing, and notable because Anil Mehul does not participate at all. He's done playing doubles in Masters events. Shyam Senepathy, given a wild-card because reasons, gets a whopping two games off Cone in the first round. All the seeds advance, with only Mackenzie pushed to a decisive third set.
#16 Jolland falls to Damian Cortecedo, the 25-year-old Chilean who is making an increasing nuisance of himself as a Top 50 but not elite guy, in the second round. Espinoza takes a pair of tiebreaks to dimiss #15 Besson as well. Best match goes to Cristian Castegali not quite having enough this time; Gregory Mackenzie struggles for the second match in a row but moves on 6-7(4), 6-4, 6-4. In the third, a man not heard from much the last few weeks arises again. Third-ranked Martin Zarco departs early courtesy of Alexey Nikitin, 7-5, 3-6, 6-3. Teng needs a third-set breaker to get past (14) Alexey Alenichev ... and in literally his first bad loss of the entire year, Ritwik Dudwadkar falls to (12)Dick Blake, 6-3, 6-7(9), 6-3. Blake needed 26 more service points than Dudwadkar, but you won't win many hardcourt matches going 1 of 17 on break points. Should have played better both technically and mentally here. It's not the end of the world or anything, but a rather shocking display to see two of the top three tumble out this quickly.
The quarterfinals got a lot more interesting all of a sudden. Kaspar pushed aside Ruben Piazzola, but it wasn't all roses this time as the match went to three sets. Rather stunning result on this surface. Prakash Mooljee was the last Sri Lankan around, but that didn't last long against the rising Ukrainian Menace(ok, that's a little silly, I admit it). 6-3, 6-4, Nikitin sends him out. Another third-round tiebreak gets the survivor Teng past Blake, and Guus Dircx drops a surprise 6-4, 7-5 decision to Fangio -- and the Italian was doubles champ here as well, by the way.
Straight-sets win for Mateo in the semis over Alexey Nikitin, but his first Masters semi moves him into the Top 10, and stakes a big claim to the tour finals spot. Gillo Fangio loses a close one to Hsuang-tsung Teng, the New Zealander surviving again 6-4, 7-6(5). He, uh, didn't exactly manage that much against Mateo Kaspar though, taking just three games in the final. Clearly happy just to get there. With most of the other top players losing early, it was a bit of a curveball start to the tennis fall season.
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