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Shanghai
Hughes/Hart claimed the doubles title, including an impressive win over recently-ascended #1s Kaspar/Godinic in the final. We didn't participate as much as I'd like, with Guha/Chiba not teaming up because I forgot to set them as partners again. They competed individually, but there wasn't much to merit reporting about their efforts.
The biggest story about Shanghai is who wasn't there at the end of it. I'm
referring to Perez, who departed shocking early. In his absence, the next four players in the rankings all made the semifinals to fill the gap, and it was Harald Wentz defeating Calisto Aviles 6-4, 6-4 to claim his fifth Masters Shield. Neither player had a super-easy path with a tight win over Tobias Velilla for Wentz, while Aviles needed three to get by Chisulo Mpakati. The quarterfinals were possibly even more competitive, with all but one match going three sets. American Jaak Christ, unseeded conqueror of Nicolas Perez in the second round, was only ousted by Mpakati after the loss of a set and two long breakers. Ollie Haas, Lucas Perez, and Srba Dogic all also made their presence felt before falling.
Dogic had an upset of Jung in order to get there. Anilophiles Clavet Moniotte (close 3-set defeat to L. Perez) and Ross Vicars (l. Velilla) both made it to the third round. Along with our #1, Seamus Hughes (three sets to Wentz), Helmut Edlund (Velilla), and Amrik Kasaravalli (three sets to Vicars) went out in the second. For Kasaravalli, it was a sign of the times. The youngsters are already surpassing him - it's his second defeat in as many weeks to the next generation. Whatever progress he makes relative to those ahead of him seems destined to be eaten up by these young guns, making it unlikely further progress of significance will be made.
John Hart was Christ's first victim in the opening round, while Sushant Chiba was roundly defeated by Hughes and Algot Hakanson went out to Vicars.
Perez had plenty of cushion of course, but perhaps second-ranked Wentz is rousing himself from a slumber and ready to be a major threat on hardcourts again. Time will tell if he can sustain this.
Elsewhere …
Nasir Chittoor had two options for challengers this week. Practice would be garbage and entering the Masters wouldn't get him anywhere. CH2 Tiburon featured American Jeremy Malicote, and dealing with him on his home turf would be a very likely loss. The other was the indoor event at CH1 Rennes. While playing indoors is not what I'd prefer on any basis, it seemed the better of the two choices. There was quality competiton here as well. I was mostly concerned about Norwegian Markus Gronhag, who continues to float in the 50s but is better than that - just seems in no hurry to move up. He's beaten Chittoor in both their previous meetings and is responsible for one of his two defeats this year. Neither player is adept at indoor play, and their SF encounter could have gone either way. The match stats were a little hard to make sense of, but ultimately Nasir beat Markus for the first time, 6-1, 4-6, 6-3. Both players are excellent mentally, but on this day Chittoor got the better of the exchanges on BPs and that probably was as important as anything. In the final, it was the skilled indoor player but also exhausted Willy Weigl, top seed at this event. I thought the fatigue would probably, but not certainly, get Chittoor through and ultimately it did in an up-and-down three-set match. Equally prepared, Weigl would certainly have the upper hand on this court.
This was the first time in months that Chittoor has faced opponents of similar quality. He could easily have lost as early as the semis and left a lot of ranking points on the table. The remaining two events he has planned for this year are in weeks where there are 4-5 possibilities to choose from, so I don't see that situation coming up again.
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