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Old 05-10-2016, 09:52 AM   #349
Brian Swartz
Grizzled Veteran
 
Join Date: May 2006
Monte Carlo Masters

It was the same drill for Shreya Ujjaval -- one of the better qualifiers so that was a breeze, tight win over Zakirov in the first round, routine loss to a seed in the second. Alberti in this case. Still a solid result but he's fallen into the overplaying trap for the first time in a while unfortunately. Hopefully he'll take at least one of Madrid/Rome off.

Meanwhile Girsh had a completely optimal draw in order of seeds. What that meant is that he would face the gauntlet of Herreras. The first was Agustin in the third round, and it almost ended for him there before he staged a rally to win 4-6, 6-4, 6-3. Marcelo went down pretty easily, leaving the third in a row as the best of the bunch, No. 7 Thiago in the semifinals who is the defending champion here. Again Girsh lost the first set but came back, 6-7(4), 6-4, 6-2. As the fresher man for both that match and the final, he went for the title against my favorite for the tournament, Gustavo Caratti, who he had narrowly beaten in that epic tiebreak last time out. Stunningly, Girsh won it in routine fashion, winning just over half his return points!

He's been to several finals, but this is the first Masters title for Girish Girsh and also the first time he was a top seed. For the moment this cuts the gap between him and #3 Bjorn Benda in less than half, and provides hope he might make more progress on that front in the rest of the clay season. A fine performance for him, though he could easily have lost multiple times he pulled through.

Coming Up ...

A couple weeks off before Madrid ramps up the dirt season. Ritwik Dudwadkar is the only player expected to enter any tournaments in this gap.
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