[Brian Swartz]

January

The first round of the World Team Cup, on grass against Morocco, saw Hamal Sbai do everything he could. The world #4 beat Dudwadkar in straight sets(all 6-4) and Chiba in four. Unfortunately for them but good for us, their doubles partnership somehow managed to be worse than ours. And that's saying something. We have Girish Kansai(120th) and veteran Ritwik Suksma(346th). Those rankings are after getting the points from their straight-set win here, mind. Just ponder how bad you have to be to not take a set off from that in Level 1 competition. But anyway we win 3-2, and figure to decide the group title next time against 6th-ranked Italy.

Ritwik Dudwadkar played in Brisbane(250) as his warm-up event, and his toughest out was in the quarterfinals. The new Russian I mentioned in the preview, Valery Stachovsky, pushed him to 7-5, 7-6(5). The rest was easy, including the final over Kaihep, the pride of Algeria. Sushant Chiba was off to the Qatar Open(250) as the 2-seed. There was an anticipated match there against John Hart, the first of what will surely be many meetings. It went pretty much to form, a tight one which Sushant won 7-5, 7-6(4) with both players optimally prepared. He won both break points in the match(one on each player's serve) and the tiebreak. That gave him the victory despite being outplayed by a hair overall. Hart is equal technically and moves better around the court, but he doesn't have Chiba's mental game. So for now, and probably not much longer, that still gave my guy the upper hand. The final was a 7-5, 6-2 defeat to Karl Kaspar. No sign in his hardcourt dominance abating as of yet. Also notable was semifinalist Nintau Ariyanuntaka; the Thai 23-year-old started the year ranked 42nd and made a statement here that he's moving up.

Prachuab, Guadiana, and Meikeljohn won the other events, with the last of the three moving back up to #10 with his title. It's time to see who has the goods in the first Slam of the year now as the Australian Open beckons.