|
Cincinatti Masters
Last year Shreya Ujjaval was worn out and skipped Cincinatti. This year he qualified, and met Perry Mockler in the first round. He played well early to steal the first set, but would win only three more games. Probably should have skipped it this year as well, esp. since now he won't be at his best for the USO. Same song, different verse.
No real first-round upsets, though Kinczllers had to go through a tight third-set tiebreak to escape one of the toughest opening matchups against [b]Pavel Bestemianov(RUS, no. 25). As it turned out, this would be quite important. Garreth McCuskey showed Marcek, having a terrible summer so far, the door abruptly 6-3, 6-0 in round two while pretty much everyone else cruised through. McCuskey pulled off another upset, this one over Bereznity, in the third round but it was a lot tighter -- 7-5 in the third. Meanwhile both Mehul and Girsh dropped the first sets of their matches for the first time but both found their way through, against Mockler and Trulsen respectively. Kinczllers had another tough one, a two-tiebreak affair over Caratti.
The quarterfinals went pretty routinely for the top half, as Iglar and Benda set up another clash. Anil Mehul was next on the docket for Mugur Kinczllers, the latter continuing to escape in a 6-4, 6-7(6), 6-3 upset. Mehul hasn't lost often this year, but this was one day in which he couldn't quite get it done. Probably deserved to win, but also probably deserved to lose last week at the same juncture against the same opponent. Kinczllers has become one of the better hard-court players out there. Meanwhile Girish Girsh lost a close second-set breaker but otherwhise took care of business against McCuskey, who was in his first big quarterfinal. It'll be interesting to see if the American can back up this performance. There was no real drama in the semis. Iglar over Benda in a competitive two again, and Girsh finally took out Kinczllers in a match controlled by the servers. Four break points each way, Girsh was the only man to convert and then got through a tiebreak as well.
Advancing to the final then, Girsh got his 30th shot against Antonin Iglar in what has been a notably one-sided matchup. He stole the first, then fell behind quickly in the second. In the final set there were only two break chances, and Girish missed both of them. One at 2-all, one at 3-all. The momentum swung to the Czech at that point, but while he was pushed to deuce twice, Girsh held each time. The tiebreak was back-and-forth, but Iglar faltered in the second half of it including an uncharacteristic double-fault at 3-4. Girish took care of his serve at the end, and snagged his second Masters of the year and biggest career victory, 6-3, 2-6, 7-6(4)! Huge win, just his third over Iglar and first on hardcourt, breaking a four-match losing streak in their matchup. He has to be considered a legitimate threat at the US Open now ...
Elsewhere ...
Prakash Mooljee was seeded third at tier-2 Samarkand, having considered entering the tier-1 challenger at San Marino but deciding against it after seeing a pretty top-heavy field. It was smooth sailing most of the way, including bludgeoning plummeting top seed Gerard Bennetto. In the final he met 2-seed Khasan Zhakirov for the 5th team, fourth as a professional. Both players are rising together, staying close to 50th in the rankings over the past months. Zhakirov is an elite athlete but not as good from the baseline, and Mooljee had won all three previous professional meetings. This was not his day though, as he lost a competitive straight-sets affair, 6-4, 6-3. His winning streak is broken, and the loss will hurt his late-season efforts.
A week off for everyone(two for Dudwadkar) until the US Open now.
|