May
In the interim before the Madrid/Rome really gets the clay season going in earnest, there were a couple more happenings. Girish Girsh needed more matches so he headed off to Barcelona(500) the week after MC. As the top seed, he had a very tight quarterfinal against 5th-seed Roger Federer(SUI), a match he had every opportunity to win but still nearly lost. 4-6, 6-4, 7-5 was the comeback final, with Federer actually applying a bit more consistent pressure but converting just 2 of 15 break points. Unfortunately Girsh didn't take advantadge of it much, getting blasted aside far too easily by Condon in the semifinals. The Phillipine star -- the only notable player from that country, as we've noticed -- went on to take his second career 500-level title, narrowly edging Caratti.
The following week, Prakash Mooljee was at it again, a Tier-3 clay challenger in Savannah, Georgia. Seeded third, he ran into more resistance this time against a pair of Americans buoyed by the local partisan crowd. In the semifinals it was 2-seed Lloyd Blackwood providing the opposition. Blackwood's complete lack of a serve eventually cost him, as 13 double faults contributed to Mooljee surviving 6-4, 4-6, 6-2. Next up was top-seeded Tommy Day. Day, a veteran ranked just outside of the Top 100, had overplayed badly coming in and the fatigue was just enough for Mooljee to capture another title, 6-4, 7-6(6). He's still perfect in singles on the year, and is really the one guy that is saving the season for Sri Lanka at the moment.
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