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Old 02-27-2016, 02:17 AM   #272
Brian Swartz
Grizzled Veteran
 
Join Date: May 2006
The week before the WTF, Prakash Mooljee was in Zimbabwe for his first tier-1 futures. He continues to falter in doubles, possibly due to weak partners, but blasted his way through without serious challenge to take the singles crown in his first attempt at this level of event. He's now well inside the Top 300 and will probably have one more futures tournament to round out the year.


2043 World Tour Finals

Round-Robin Stage

The first couple of days went more or less as expected. Girish Girsh had a long first-set tiebreak and overall a tougher time than expected with Herrera but won in two, then lost to Iglar, setting up the critical match with Benda on day three. Anil Mehul got through Mockler and Marcek in fairly routine fashion, but so did Gaskell and the winner there would take the second pool.

Girsh got off to a great start, taking the first set easily ... and then basically stopped playing in the second while Benda rallied. The third was much more highly contested, but the pressure from the German was more consistent and eventually Girsh faded, losing 1-6, 6-1, 6-4. A pretty darn severe disappointment here, a matchup he should win almost every time on an indoor court and especially after dominating the first set -- this was not at all the time to get cocky which seemed to be the case. It was quite the cruddy way to end his season. As for Mehul, he broke Gaskell immediately but the Americans' only break chance came in the very next game, evening the match. Mehul would have more opportunities but couldn't convert any, winning anyway in two tiebreak sets but he had to work for it a lot more than he should have.


Semifinals

So it was the same four-some as last year, the top three in Iglar, Mehul, and Benda followed by Gaskell as party-crasher. I don't know what it is about this event -- he has yet to reach the semis at any Slam, and isn't a big indoor player by any stretch, but he's done well here. In any case, Iglar brushed him aside as expected. Mehul had a poor stretch in the second set, leading to a scoreline that somewhat belied the fact that he was well in control almost all day against Benda, winning 6-1, 3-6, 6-2.


Finals

It would have seemed wrong if it didn't come down to this. Antonin Iglar vs. Anil Mehul. Their 30th meeting. The winner would be the top-ranked player of 2043, regardless of what happened in the WTC Finals. And this time the match was worthy of such an occasion. It played to form as both players were fairly sharp. Iglar had by far the better serve(18-6 in aces), Mehul getting the best of things by a small margin when he could keep the ball in play. Both converted pretty well when they had the chance, about half of the break chances each.

The Czech legend took a long opening set, then the second went to a tiebreak and Mehul prevailed. In the decider, he seized on the momentum and pushed his way to a hard-fought 5-7, 7-6(3), 6-4 decision, a match that could have gone either way though he was a hair better. The second-set tiebreak is really what it came down to. That and Mehul was really able to punish Iglar's second serve much more than usual, allowing him just 3 points in 17 tries! It looked like the longtime champion was just a bit off at times, just enough to create an opening.

And so one whale of a year for Anil Mehul ends with him on top of the heap. Rather fitting that it came down to the very end, a decisive third set in the final match of the year. It's been a long time, probably a decade or more, since the World Tour Finals hosted such drama. It's a narrow gap at the top, just 280 points(just over 2% of his total), but he'll stay there longer than a week this time. I'll get into the details more at the end of the year, but I would expect the stay to be a few months, and it could possibly be longer. It depends how Antonin Iglar reacts to being deposed.

Only four players have won the World Tour Finals more times than the two trophies now held by each of this years finalists. Will one of them join that elite group next year, or will someone else step up and take it from them? Meanwhile, the final tournament also showcased the biggest difference between Mehul and Girsh; the former has if anything been a slight overachiever in his career, while the younger player seems to falter against quality competition more often than not. The final chapters are far from being written, but he certainly doesn't seem to possess the same killer instinct, and is quickly running out of time to demonstrate it.

The World Team Cup Finals with the USA and Czech Republic competing for the championship will be up next in a couple of weeks, and the end-of-year spam comes a couple weeks after that.
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