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World Tour Finals
France was the host this year, which basically ended any suspense as to whether Kaspar would make history. He's a strong favorite anyway, but with the crowd fully behind him, there seemed little chance for anyone else. Both Dudwadkar and Mooljee were placed in the first group. It surprised nobody to see Prakash Mooljee go winless, failing to advance past the group stage for the third time. The accomplishment was in making the field here for the 10th time at age 32 -- and he had some competitive matches, but came up short in all of them. Ritwik Dudwadkar lost fairly meekly to Teng in his first match, but beat Zarco and then Mooljee to advance to the knockout stage for the first time in his third attempt. Two years ago he went winless, last year he won once, this year twice ... Kaspar was first in the second group, but the surprise was Gillo Fangio. The last barely-qualifier in the field, he defeated both Dircx and Piazzola to take second.
In the semifinals, Ritwik Dudwadkar gave Kaspar his toughest match of the week. Points were close at 74-68, 6-3, 7-6(5) on the scoreboard. He did well ... just not well enough. Ritwik might have just gotten the upset at a neutral venue. Either way, no shame in ending this way. The second match was a stunner with Hsuang-tsung Teng, usually tough indoors, losing a classic to Fangio 7-5, 3-6, 7-6(1). Just weeks shy of his 29th birthday, the decidedly over-the-hill Italian was beaten 6-3, 6-3 by Mateo Kaspar who claimed his record-breaking 7th WTF trophy. It's the first major record that he holds by himself ... though quite possibly not the last.
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