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Brian Swartz · 08-24-2015, 02:14 AM

Monte Carlo Masters

A few of the top players skipped this year, including Benda, the defending champion, and Mick Elder. As a result, Anil Mehul was the fifth seed and had a first-round bye. After an easy win over Birkeland 1 & 1, he had the misfortune to run into the Czech no. 2, Cestmir Marcek. Marcek is 26 and a bit of a late-bloomer, pretty much at his peak right now. He's had a few big upsets in the past year(Iglar once and Hammerstein twice off the top of my head), and while he's only 21st he's better than that and almost certainly a Top-10 player on clay.

Both previous meetings were on clay, with Marcek taking both, notably at Barcelona last year. Both went the distance, but this time it didn't take that long. A 6-4, 6-4 defeat here in the third round. He might have had a chance to steal it if he didn't drop all three break points faced, but it wasn't his day. A credible performance, but it's no more than a warmup: Mehul will not gain in the rankings since Monte Carlo is actually listed as a 500 and he's full up on better results.

More important was what happened at the business end. Both Czechs made the semifinals but it was the Spaniards, Almagro and Alvarez(not Prieto) meeting for the title with David Alvarez prevailing. You may recall, but probably don't, that a little over a year ago in this space I said that Alvarez was a guy who could make some real noise on clay. I thought the window had closed on that, he hung around as the #10 for about a year and was just displaced. Well, now he's back with his first Masters title, bumping Mehul down to 11th and off the front page.

In the last several years that I've been tracking it, this is the most points the 10th-ranked player has had(4325). I've never seen it over 4k before, it's usually in the mid-low 3000s. At 3990, Mehul is more the 700 points clear of the rest of the field and has achieved more than anybody I've ever seen get pushed out. It also complicates his road to the WTF considerably. He'll get back in the Top 10 soon as Alastra plummets, but now he needs to surpass Alvarez and Topolski instead of just the Russian -- or a different combo of two players -- to reach the final 8.

Next up, Mehul takes a couple weeks off before Madrid & Rome, where he won a combined one match last year. Everybody else is in action next week somewhere.

08-24-2015, 02:14 AM	#113
Brian Swartz Grizzled Veteran Join Date: May 2006	Monte Carlo Masters A few of the top players skipped this year, including Benda, the defending champion, and Mick Elder. As a result, Anil Mehul was the fifth seed and had a first-round bye. After an easy win over Birkeland 1 & 1, he had the misfortune to run into the Czech no. 2, Cestmir Marcek. Marcek is 26 and a bit of a late-bloomer, pretty much at his peak right now. He's had a few big upsets in the past year(Iglar once and Hammerstein twice off the top of my head), and while he's only 21st he's better than that and almost certainly a Top-10 player on clay. Both previous meetings were on clay, with Marcek taking both, notably at Barcelona last year. Both went the distance, but this time it didn't take that long. A 6-4, 6-4 defeat here in the third round. He might have had a chance to steal it if he didn't drop all three break points faced, but it wasn't his day. A credible performance, but it's no more than a warmup: Mehul will not gain in the rankings since Monte Carlo is actually listed as a 500 and he's full up on better results. More important was what happened at the business end. Both Czechs made the semifinals but it was the Spaniards, Almagro and Alvarez(not Prieto) meeting for the title with David Alvarez prevailing. You may recall, but probably don't, that a little over a year ago in this space I said that Alvarez was a guy who could make some real noise on clay. I thought the window had closed on that, he hung around as the #10 for about a year and was just displaced. Well, now he's back with his first Masters title, bumping Mehul down to 11th and off the front page. In the last several years that I've been tracking it, this is the most points the 10th-ranked player has had(4325). I've never seen it over 4k before, it's usually in the mid-low 3000s. At 3990, Mehul is more the 700 points clear of the rest of the field and has achieved more than anybody I've ever seen get pushed out. It also complicates his road to the WTF considerably. He'll get back in the Top 10 soon as Alastra plummets, but now he needs to surpass Alvarez and Topolski instead of just the Russian -- or a different combo of two players -- to reach the final 8. Next up, Mehul takes a couple weeks off before Madrid & Rome, where he won a combined one match last year. Everybody else is in action next week somewhere.