|
The first big news this week came out of Basel, where Viktor Goncharenko lost to a qualifer in the second round in a tight three-set match. Spaniard Eduardo Serrano, a skilled journeyman who usually pays more attention to doubles, was the offending party for a fairly massive upset. The upshot of this was to present an opportunity to all but knock Goncharenko out of the Race. He was already 205 points out, and that number would grow if Mehul had a decent week in Valencia.
That left seven of the current Race participants, including three whose fate has not yet been decided -- Topolski, Mehul, and Prieto -- still active. Mehul was first up, advancing with a routine win to move past Marcek into 8th place. With just a week and a half to go, this marked the first time since I started tracking the Race after Wimbledon that he had made it in the field. Only by 25 points though, and the Czech would be back next week. The others soon followed suit, all seven moving through to take all but one of the semifinal spots.
Mehul next met Alvarez, which was the easiest matchup of the three Spaniards on paper. It was just over two years since their first and only meeting(Shanghai '38), which wasn't really relevant at this point. Anywhere off of clay, Anil was the favorite but an upset was possible here. He won a close first set, but the partisan crowd willed Alvarez to a comeback in another disappointing loss, 4-6, 7-5, 6-3. Topolski and Prieto lost in the semis as well, and the stage was set for Paris. Hogue and Almagro went on to take the titles this week, but that didn't matter all that much.
|