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World Team Cup, Level 1 Group 4 Round One
Phillipines vs. Sri Lanka, Indoors
This was a bit anticlimactic. The Phillipines had a couple of players retire over the off-season, resulting in them being unable to field a viable team, and they had to forfeit the tie. It's a rather shocking development for a level 1 nation, ranked 10th in the world as they are, but Manne Pascual has been gone for a couple of years while John Condon(15th) has managed to do just enough to keep them up. It sure doesn't appear that will be good enough anymore.
** OOC Note: What the game actually did here was give Mehul and Girsh a walkover in one of their singles matches. Both beat clay-specialist Condon in their encounters, Girsh in four sets, Mehul in three. In doubles, they apparently entered some sort of VR simulation or alternate universe, playing a pair of Condon clones, and winning in four sets for a 5-0 total. I couldn't even pretend to come up with a realistic way to justify this in-character, it's such an unlikely scenario and one that RR clearly isn't programmed to deal with quite properly in doubles. **
Sri Lanka moves up two spots to 21st, achieving a new high. They'll next face Peru on grass, with the final group tie against top-ranked Spain taking place very favorably indoors as well. If they can defeat the Peruvians again as expected, Sri Lanka will advance from the group stage for the first time.
Coming Up ...
The Australian Open is three weeks away. Both Mehul and Girsh will see some 250-level action in the meantime. It's particularly important for Girsh to do well, in an effort to secure a Top-16 seed at the AO.
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