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Brian Swartz · 10-06-2023, 12:36 AM

Miami Masters

Starting in the third round, we've once again got lots of action to get to:

- Jorg Weltsch had a bad draw, ate a pair of breadsticks from Faille, and that was that.

- Jochen Weigle impressively held out, barely, against American Luke Ayriss. 7-6(4) in the third set.

- Girish Raychaudhari met up with 7-seed Chris King. I discovered a clerical error that I made at some point, recording King's mentality as being a perfect 5.0 instead of a poor 1.8. That turns my assessment of him quite a bit; he hasn't been underachieving, he was just never that good. So I figured Raychaudhari had a pretty good chance here. He lost 6-4, 6-3 though, and it wasn't particularly close

- Iljia Starkov continues to show he's better than he's ranked, knocking out Antoine Benth.

- Strong effort by Olivier Pitteaux, who pushes crowd favorite Alving Fant to the limit before losing 3-6, 6-4, 7-5.

- Renke Von dem Knesebeck crashes through again. 4-6, 6-1, 7-6(4), a most impressive win over world #5 Davide de Laurentiis. Knesebeck wins these last couple of rounds, no doubt about it.

- Goya Banqueria exists in three sets to Derlanga.

- Shockingly, Clavet Jadot outlasts American Kevin Pinder in a matchup of similarly ranked players. I expected that one to go the other way.

This time there were only three unexpected players in the fourth round. Starkov beat (6) Jason Abercrombie in three sets, and then the other two matched up with Knesebeck taking down Derlanga in a close two. Both of them make big statements in getting back to the quarterfinals. The only real on-paper upset is King losing to 16-seed Rory Buckman, which ... is not really much of an upset in this case when you factor in the crowd. The top four all won their quarterfinal matches, and the only close one was Kabo Mankaba pushing Przalowik to 7-6(1), 4-6, 7-5. So, drama over now, right?

Not by a long shot. After cruising to this point, Ben Faille was upset by Jan Schleicher 7-6(2), 2-6, 6-4. It was their 15th head-to-head match, and the first time Faille hasn't prevailed. There have been some close ones, but it had been a year since they'd even gone the distance. After Ene Caballero pushed past Przalowik in a surprisingly difficult three, he couldn't take down Schleicher either; 6-4, 6-4 for the title match.

Jan Schleicher earns his first Masters Shield! In this era that is indeed a thing to celebrate. The general of feeling of 'ok, now what' intensifies. We'll see if this was a one-off or not.

10-06-2023, 12:36 AM	#1474
Brian Swartz Grizzled Veteran Join Date: May 2006	Miami Masters Starting in the third round, we've once again got lots of action to get to: - Jorg Weltsch had a bad draw, ate a pair of breadsticks from Faille, and that was that. - Jochen Weigle impressively held out, barely, against American Luke Ayriss. 7-6(4) in the third set. - Girish Raychaudhari met up with 7-seed Chris King. I discovered a clerical error that I made at some point, recording King's mentality as being a perfect 5.0 instead of a poor 1.8. That turns my assessment of him quite a bit; he hasn't been underachieving, he was just never that good. So I figured Raychaudhari had a pretty good chance here. He lost 6-4, 6-3 though, and it wasn't particularly close - Iljia Starkov continues to show he's better than he's ranked, knocking out Antoine Benth. - Strong effort by Olivier Pitteaux, who pushes crowd favorite Alving Fant to the limit before losing 3-6, 6-4, 7-5. - Renke Von dem Knesebeck crashes through again. 4-6, 6-1, 7-6(4), a most impressive win over world #5 Davide de Laurentiis. Knesebeck wins these last couple of rounds, no doubt about it. - Goya Banqueria exists in three sets to Derlanga. - Shockingly, Clavet Jadot outlasts American Kevin Pinder in a matchup of similarly ranked players. I expected that one to go the other way. This time there were only three unexpected players in the fourth round. Starkov beat (6) Jason Abercrombie in three sets, and then the other two matched up with Knesebeck taking down Derlanga in a close two. Both of them make big statements in getting back to the quarterfinals. The only real on-paper upset is King losing to 16-seed Rory Buckman, which ... is not really much of an upset in this case when you factor in the crowd. The top four all won their quarterfinal matches, and the only close one was Kabo Mankaba pushing Przalowik to 7-6(1), 4-6, 7-5. So, drama over now, right? Not by a long shot. After cruising to this point, Ben Faille was upset by Jan Schleicher 7-6(2), 2-6, 6-4. It was their 15th head-to-head match, and the first time Faille hasn't prevailed. There have been some close ones, but it had been a year since they'd even gone the distance. After Ene Caballero pushed past Przalowik in a surprisingly difficult three, he couldn't take down Schleicher either; 6-4, 6-4 for the title match. Jan Schleicher earns his first Masters Shield! In this era that is indeed a thing to celebrate. The general of feeling of 'ok, now what' intensifies. We'll see if this was a one-off or not. Last edited by Brian Swartz : 10-06-2023 at 12:37 AM.