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Old 03-26-2016, 06:23 AM   #296
Brian Swartz
Grizzled Veteran
 
Join Date: May 2006
2044 Roland Garros

Opening Rounds

The second Slam of the year arrives with a comprehensively disappointing clay season for Sri Lanka's top players leading up to it. Shreya Ujjaval has done ok and has been moving up slowly through the rankings, but he was bounced in straight sets in the first round by 24-seed Andre Herrera(PER). The Herreras are all strong clay-court players, so this was not much a surprise, just not a great matchup.

The opening rounds set up pretty well for the top duo. Both walked through their first three matches, then met up with rising French players in the fourth round hoping to get some support from the crowd in the homeland's top tournament. Mehul brushed aside 17th-seed Davide Poilblan, and Girsh took down 21st-seed Theodore Boudret, both in lopsided straight-set wins. Both of the youngsters had pulled off one upset to get here, but that was it for them. A smooth ride to the quarterfinals was a nice change from the past few events.

Meanwhile, Prakash Mooljee's next outing was his first Tier-2 challenger in Nantes, not all that far away. Seeded third, a potential semifinal encounter with likely rival Hugo Jurco, the top seed, seemed to be on the cards. However, Mooljee was stunned by Finnish qualifier Lanni Sivonen in the first round instead, his first loss in several months! 6-2, 2-6, 7-6(4) was the final. Sivonen is the kind of player he's beaten many times, a fine baseline player without much of a serve, but he is a more adept player on this surface. Mooljee actually was slightly the better player, and it was the kind of match he's come through time and time again. Not this time.


Second Week

Back at RG, Girish Girsh was in Iglar's quarter, and didn't put up much of a fight in a meek three-set departure. That's 18 losses in as many career matchups, for those of you scoring at home. Making the quarterfinals isn't a bad result, and would be fine if he'd produced more consistent results leading up to it. Anil Mehul sent surprise quarterfinalist Agustin Herrera packing, matching his best result here with the win but he had yet to face any of the world's better clay players, so it's largely been a luck of the draw thing this year. He'll take it.

In the first semifinal, Bjorn Benda laid a beatdown on Iglar the likes of which I don't think I've seen him endure before. 6-1, 6-3, 6-0, with the five-time champion facing just one break point and nearly doubling the legend in terms of total points. A rather embarassing thing. The fans got their money's worth in the second match though, which featured Mehul going up against Cestmir Marcek. Anil had the better of things for the most part, but the feisty 30-year-old Czech would not give up easily. He won a tiebreak in the fourth set to force the match to go the distance, and then pushed the final frame beyond it's expected duration. Eventually though, Mehul did prevail, 6-4, 2-6, 6-2, 6-7(5), 9-7! He was just a little better in the key moments, and advanced to his first-ever final here at RG. That gives him a full set; he's been to at least one championship match now in every Slam tournament. Not a bad thing to put on the resume.

That meant of course going up against Benda, winner of five of the last six titles here. Two years ago, in Mehul's previous best, he led two sets to zero but let it slip away in the semifinals, his best chance to date at winning this tournament. History has a way of repeating, and sometimes reversing itself. After a tight first set went the way of the German, the second was more one-sided and it looked like it might be over quickly. Anil had other ideas, prevailing in a third-set tiebreak and then taking the fourth as well. A second straight five-set match, and by far Benda's sternest test of the championships, ended somewhat anticlimactically as he seized control early in the fifth to take his sixth trophy here, 7-5, 6-2, 6-7(5), 4-6, 6-2. He was at his best when it mattered most, winning 9 of 15 break chances. Anil did well to push it this far, but comes up one set short.


Elsewhere ...

Mooljee was back in action again at a tier-2 in Furth, Germany. Seeded 5th this time, he made it further(bad pun intended) that the previous week ... but not by much. In the second round, unseeded Argentina Benjamin Mendez knocked him out in a close straight-sets scoreline. It was basically the same situation as before; Mendez is an all-rally, no-serve veteran who is superior on clay and in better match shape. Two tier-2 events, two early losses, the kinds of matches he normally wins. Safe to say our young hero has finally hit the wall, at least for the moment. These kinds of results actually knock him backwards in terms of rankings, with a futures success from last year coming off his tally every few weeks. He was fortunate enough to snag a good doubles partner, and made a run to the final, so at least Mooljee will be able to take a couple weeks off for training. This was the last week of his teen years, which were overwhelmingly successful except for the recent unpleasantness.


Coming Up ...

Everybody's off until Wimbledon in three weeks, when Mehul will go for his third straight title. Certainly his performance here at RG provides hope that he's shaken off the doldrums of the last couple of months.
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