Canadian Filip Peliwo’s victory over Filippo Volandri in Casablanca Monday was significant for a number of reasons.
Obviously, beating a top-100 guy (Volandri’s ranking is 80) is terrific, as is making the second round of an ATP Tour event.
But in Peliwo’s case specifically, it likely means even more than that.
Time is running out for Peliwo to gain enough ground in the rankings from his current No. 266 to be high enough to make the French Open qualifying. After this week, he’ll have two more weeks to try to make up ground.
The cutoff the last two years in Paris was No. 225 at the entry deadline; but after the various withdrawals in qualifying, and those in the main draw that allowed potential qualifiers to move into the main draw, the last player into qualifying had a ranking of No. 244.
With the points from qualifying and the first-round victory, Peliwo should come in somewhere around No. 230 in next week’s rankings (He’d be close to No. 210 or so if he could beat Federico Delbonis on Wednesday).
In other words, while nothing is certain, that win likely did the trick to get Peliwo into his second Grand Slam qualies of the season.
When Open Court spoke with him Monday, Peliwo said he hoped he’d get in but he wasn’t overly optimistic, thinking the cutoff would just be too high.
But the points pile up a lot more quickly at the ATP Tour level than they do in the Challengers.
Peliwo isn’t in the main draw anywhere the next two weeks. He could play qualifying at the Challenger in Sarasota, Fla. next week, and either the Savannah, Ga. or another Challenger in Italy the week after that. But there aren’t many guaranteed ranking points to be had there unless he really does something.
At the moment, though, it appears Peliwo has made it. And that’s more terrific news for the kid.
Certainly (except for that final day), he has terrific memories of the place from back in 2012.
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