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Old 06-21-2019, 09:13 PM   #1078
Brian Swartz
Grizzled Veteran
 
Join Date: May 2006
February/March

The second week of the AO was the first challenger of the year for my younger players. They headed off to CH1 Heilbronn, where I unrealistically thought Nasir Chittoor might slide into the final seeded spot. Instead, he lost to the 6-seed in a close first-round match, and the week was an unmitigated disaster. Satyagit Guha didn't make it out of qualifying, and the doubles effort didn't reach the main draw either. A mistake to enter there, and we paid for it.

Then the second round of the World Team Cup, where we met up with the United States. A win here would assure us of making it through group play. I had high hopes going up against them on clay, but we came up on the short end of a 3-2 score. Doubles was no contest, and we got one win each in singles. Sushant Chiba split a pair of 5-set matches; I needed one of the guys to win over Molyneaux but it didn't happen. It's unlikely, but if we lose against Russia and Spain beats the USA in the final round, we'll be left holding the bag. More probable is a close win and just getting through.

Chiba played a couple of events after some time off, bowing out in the semis of both Delray Beach (250, Hard) and Acapulco (500, Hard). Both losses were to Mexico's Jorge Campos, who pushed upwards while Sushant just sort of hangs out in the upper teens. Amrik Kasaravalli lost to the much better indoor player Algot Hakanson at the Memphis Indoors, then accepted the fact that he's down in the challenger ranks AGAIN and stomped through the field at CH2 Casablance, flattening Anilophile Willy Weigl in the title match there. It's not his last challenger unless he makes a breakthrough sometime the next month or two. Esp. since the ranking bug showed up and didn't give him credit for it.

Chittoor/Guha went off to CH2 Dallas and had a lot more success there. Won the trophy in doubles, securing their spot for good as Sri Lanka's top pairs team, while Chittoor made his third challenger final - but still came away without the hardware in a disappointingly one-sided 6-1, 6-1 breadstick fest against Tim Gudsell. Guha was punished in qualifying once more. Scheduling for those two is still very precarious, checking the entries in all the relevant events on a week-to-week basis; I really can't plan ahead at all with how unpredictable things are. Just trying to grind whatever ranking/xp points I can find while they steadily improve.

Coming Up ...

The IW/Miami double will probably see Perez take the top spot, and more chaos below, but its far from certain. While the youngster seek out whatever opportunities they can find, Chiba & Kasaravalli seek the breakthroughs that eluded them in Australia.
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