St. Petersburg Open
Sunday 26 October
In the doubles final of the St Petersburg Open, German pair Michael Kohlmann and Rainer Schuettler were defeated by Nenad Zimonjic and Julian Knowle 67(1) 36. During the ceremony, Rainer addressed the small crowd and took home his second finalists trophy on his fourth trip to St Petersburg.
In singles play, Guga beat Sargsian 64 63. Over in Basel, Nalbandian withdrew from the final due to his wrist injury, so Coria took the title. Organizers scrambled to find an opponent for an exhibition match against Coria. Unknown Swiss player Jean-Claude Scherrer was flown in by helicopter from his rural home.
There's Something About Rainer... Articles
Saturday 25 October
Sargsian Stops Schuettler In Semis
Armenian Sargis Sargsian continued his solid play in St Petersburg, upsetting top-seed Rainer Schuettler 36 36 to advance to the finals. Earlier in the day Kuerten stopped Corretja's run with a 64 63 win.
Rainer took to the court again in the next match of the day as he and Michael Kohlmann played in the doubles semifinal against Garcia and Prieto. The German duo scored a straight set 64 64 win and will play for the title against Julian Knowle and Nenad Zimonjic. They scored a huge upset win of their own (Michael and Rainer previously defeated the 3rd seed) in knocking out top ranked Max Mirnyi and Mahesh Bhupathi 64 64 in the semis. In doubles entry rankings, Mirnyi is now #1 with Bhupathi 4th (2 and 3 occupied by the Bryan twins), and in the Champions Race the pair is second behind the Bryans, 902 to 878.
I believe this is the first time that Zimonjic and Knowle have paired up in doubles competition. This year with other players they have had some doubles success, as Knowle - who plays with Kohlmann a good deal, won Chennai, was a finalist in Copenhagen, and reached the semis in Metz and Casablanca with the German. He won Besancon with Erlich and with Melzer he was a Newport finalist and Bucharest semifinalist.
Zimonjic has won Belgrade (w/ Ilia Bozoljac) and Delray Beach (w/ Leander Paes), reached the finals in Valencia (w/ Brian MacPhie) and St. Poelten (w/ Sargis Sargsian) and the semis in Doha and Marseille (w/ Nicolas Escude) and in Indianapolis (w/ Justin Gimelstob).
The Sunday doubles final follows the 2pm Kuerten and Sargsian matchup.
Schuettler Shots... Photos
There's Something About Rainer... Articles
Friday 24 October
Schuettler Over Youzhny, Into Semifinals
Rainer Schuettler moved into his third semifinal of the past four tournaments as he defeated Mikhail Youzhny 63 63. (Schuettler broke out the US Open/Lyon shirt for this one to avoid the battle of the Fila redshirts.) Sargis Sargsian is his next opponent, as the Armenian defeated Burgsmuller 63 61 earlier in the day. It will be the fifth meeting between them, but the first of 2003. Previously, Schuettler won at Wimbledon 2002 63 60 61, the 2001 Australian Open 63 75 46 64, and their first contest back in 1998 when a then-ranked 115th Rainer beat 64th-ranked Sargsian in Newport 62 67 64. Sargsian won their tight 2001 Morocco meeting 64 57 57. This year he has been a quarterfinalist in Chennai, Bucharest, Wroclaw and Valencia and was a finalist in Moscow. After his Moscow and Vienna appearances, Sargsian is now ranked 42nd.
Other winners on Friday were (3) Kuerten def (6) Spadea 64 76 and continuing his great run, wildcard Corretja knocked off defending champ and the #2 seed Grosjean 46 62 76(5).
Saturday's Schedule: Corretja v Kuerten on Center Court at 2pm (local time) with Rainer's match to follow. Then, after some brief rest, Schuettler and Kohlmann play their semifinal doubles match vs Prieto and Garcia.
Schuettler Shots... Photos
There's Something About Rainer... Articles
Thursday 23 October
Rainer Advances to 15th Quarters of 2003
Rainer Schuettler advanced to the St Petersburg Open quarterfinals - his third in four appearances here - with a 62 63 win over Vladimir Voltchkov. Already in the quarters are wildcard Alex Corretja and Vince Spadea, as well as Lars Burgsmuller who got through with a 64 64 win over Vicente. Sargis Sargsian will be Lars' next opponent.
Next up for Rainer is Mikhail Youzhny (5th seed), who defeated Kafelnikov 62 62. The Russian, a friend and frequent doubles partner of Schuettler, has reached the semifinals in Halle, Lyon (vs Rainer), and Doha and the quarterfinals in Stuttgart, Munich, and Bastad; he and Rainer were doubles semifinalists in Lyon. Youzhny, now ranked 41st, and Schuettler have played each other twice - both this year and both times the German came out ahead. Earlier this summer Rainer won their first round match at TMS Canada 62 64, and in the Lyon semis Youzhny nearly scored an upset before Schuettler cam back from 04 in the 3rd, 63 36 75.
Youzhny, who can be billed as the future of Russian tennis, has also had success at the St Petersurg Open, but both he and Rainer are after their first title here. Last year he defeated Younes El Aynaoui 36 64 63, Guillermo Coria 64 36 64, Andrei Pavel 61 63, and Vladimir Voltchkov 64 63 before falling in the finals to Sebastien Grosjean 57 46. In 2001 he beat Alex Calatrava 75 75 before losing a tight match to then-6th-ranked Yevgeny Kafelnikov 76(1) 67(6) 57.
Other winners on the day were: (3)G Kuerten (BRA) d V Hanescu (ROM) 76(1) 76(1) and defending champion (2)S Grosjean (FRA) d A Dupuis (FRA) 62 62.
Their Friday match is scheduled "not before 7pm" on Center Court.
Later in the day Rainer and doubles partner Michael Kohlmann scored an upset win over third-seeded Cibulec and Vizner 76(3) 62 in the quarterfinals. They next face the Argentinean pair of Sebastian Prieto and Martin Garcia who advanced to the semis in a walkover. They have won Salinas, were Prague finalists, and reached the semifinals at Kosice this year.
Schuettler Shots... Photos
There's Something About Rainer... Articles
Wednesday 22 October
Today Rainer defeated qualifier Jean-Rene Lisnard 76(5) 61 to advance to the second round of the St Petersburg Open. He came back from 0-4 in the tiebreak to get through the first set, but after that fell back into his normal game to claim the second. Schuettler, now an impressive 65-26 on the year, next takes on Belarussian Vladimir Voltchkov - his recent opponent from Davis Cup.
The two played a tough five sets in their singles first round, with Rainer winning 63 36 67 64 64. Voltchkov advanced after defeating wildcard Vadim Davletshin 76(6) 63 and this year he has appeared in five quarterfinals: San Jose (won doubles title there with Hyung-Taik Lee), Istanbul, Memphis, Delray Beach and Nottingham.
Schuettler's match is scheduled for 3pm on Center Court, and then Rainer must play doubles with Michael Kohlmann later that afternoon/evening. The quarterfinals match against the Czech team of Vizner and Cibulec is third up on Court 1 after Lars Burgsmuller v Vicente and Dupuis v Grosjean. Reports on the doubles can be seen below in Tuesday's writeup.
The Schuettler/Voltchkov winner faces the Kafelnikov/Mikhail Youzhny (5th seed) winner.
Schuettler Shots... Photos
There's Something About Rainer... Articles
Tuesday 21 October
In doubles action, the German pair of Rainer Schuettler and Michael Kohlmann won their first round match against Anthony Dupuis and Andrei Olhovskiy, 62 75. They will next face a tough second round match against Tomas Cibulec and Pavel Vizner, the tourney's third seed. The Czech combo defeated Yevgeny Kafelnikov and Radek Stepanek 63 60 in their Tuesday match. This year Vizner and Cibulec have won Copenhagen and Stuttgart, were finalists in Marseille and Milan, and reached the semis at 's-Hertogenbosch, Halle, Long Island, and Munich. In the ATP Doubles Race, they are currently 12th, but only 30 points out of 9th place.
Rainer's singles match against Lisnard is scheduled for "not before 5pm" on Center Court. Try the ATP site for updated scores, the tournament site for an online scoreboard and a possible Media Player video, and Bet & Win for a ticker.
They play late here, it's 11pm St P time and the Kuerten match just finished the first set.
Monday 20 October
After a second round loss in Madrid, Rainer Schuettler had some days off to rest up and prepare for the St. Petersburg Open. This is Rainer's fourth appearance at the St. Petersburg Open since 1998. (Of note: there is a Media Player option on the site.)
His first match is against Jean-Rene Lisnard (FRA) and it appears to be scheduled for Wednesday. This will be the fourth meeting between the two, with the Frenchman having a 2-1 advantage. This year at the French Open, Rainer won in the 2nd round 46 62 64 60 while they started the year in Chennai where Lisnard won 26 57 in the quarterfinals. Their first meeting was the 2002 US Open where Rainer retired at 63 76(2) 46 04. In 2003 Lisnard reached the semifinals in Chennai and was in the quarters at Prostejov and Wroclaw.
Rainer is the top seed for this event, followed by Grosjean, Kuerten, Mirnyi, Youzhny, Spadea, Gaudio and Safin. Nicolas Kiefer and Lars Burgsmuller are the other German singles players in this event.
Schuettler is also in the doubles draw with countryman Michael Kohlmann, they face Anthony Dupuis (FRA) and Andrei Olhovskiy (RUS) in the first round on Tuesday as the last match on Court 2. The German duo has teamed up before: 2003 in Feb for World Group Davis Cup play vs Argentina, March in Scottsdale and Miami TMS and May at the Hamburg TMS; 2001 Munich in April and Hamburg TMS in May; June 2000 for Halle and Oct 1999 at the Stuttgart Indoor.
Previously in this event, Rainer faired quite well in his three showings (1998, 2000 and 2001), and after spending 2002 in Stockholm he's returned to action at the "Peterburgsky."
In 1998, back when the event was in February, he lost to D. Hrbaty 36 46 in the first round while in 2000 the 56th ranked Schuettler had victories over Harel Levy (ISR) (57) 61 63 and David Prinosil (GER) (43) 62 63 before falling to Marat Safin (RUS) (2) 46 61 36 in the quarters. In 2001 he upset Juan Carlos Ferrero (ESP) (5) 76(10) 64, beat Daniel Vacek (CZE) (182) 62 64, defeated Max Mirnyi (BLR) (30) 75 63 in the quarters and then Michael Llodra (FRA) (141) 63 64 in the semifinals. He was stopped again by Safin (11), this time in the finals, 63 36 36. Rainer entered this last tournament of the year ranked 46th and finished the year at 48.
Schuettler Shots... Photos Here are some images from 2000 and 2001 of Schuettler in Russia
Play tends to begin at noon and 1pm (local time) on the courts and the evening session begins at 7pm. St. Petersburg is 2 hours ahead of Germany and 8 for NY.
Draws and order of play for event can be found here on the ATP website.
In the doubles final of the St Petersburg Open, German pair Michael Kohlmann and Rainer Schuettler were defeated by Nenad Zimonjic and Julian Knowle 67(1) 36. During the ceremony, Rainer addressed the small crowd and took home his second finalists trophy on his fourth trip to St Petersburg.
In singles play, Guga beat Sargsian 64 63. Over in Basel, Nalbandian withdrew from the final due to his wrist injury, so Coria took the title. Organizers scrambled to find an opponent for an exhibition match against Coria. Unknown Swiss player Jean-Claude Scherrer was flown in by helicopter from his rural home.
- ATP's recap of finals, has mini mention of doubles
Saturday 25 October
Sargsian Stops Schuettler In Semis
Armenian Sargis Sargsian continued his solid play in St Petersburg, upsetting top-seed Rainer Schuettler 36 36 to advance to the finals. Earlier in the day Kuerten stopped Corretja's run with a 64 63 win.
Rainer took to the court again in the next match of the day as he and Michael Kohlmann played in the doubles semifinal against Garcia and Prieto. The German duo scored a straight set 64 64 win and will play for the title against Julian Knowle and Nenad Zimonjic. They scored a huge upset win of their own (Michael and Rainer previously defeated the 3rd seed) in knocking out top ranked Max Mirnyi and Mahesh Bhupathi 64 64 in the semis. In doubles entry rankings, Mirnyi is now #1 with Bhupathi 4th (2 and 3 occupied by the Bryan twins), and in the Champions Race the pair is second behind the Bryans, 902 to 878.
I believe this is the first time that Zimonjic and Knowle have paired up in doubles competition. This year with other players they have had some doubles success, as Knowle - who plays with Kohlmann a good deal, won Chennai, was a finalist in Copenhagen, and reached the semis in Metz and Casablanca with the German. He won Besancon with Erlich and with Melzer he was a Newport finalist and Bucharest semifinalist.
Zimonjic has won Belgrade (w/ Ilia Bozoljac) and Delray Beach (w/ Leander Paes), reached the finals in Valencia (w/ Brian MacPhie) and St. Poelten (w/ Sargis Sargsian) and the semis in Doha and Marseille (w/ Nicolas Escude) and in Indianapolis (w/ Justin Gimelstob).
The Sunday doubles final follows the 2pm Kuerten and Sargsian matchup.
- ATP's review of the day. Sargsian said, "Rainer is so solid, for sure he didn't play his best match today but it gives me a lot of confidence."
Rainer's quotes: "He played a good match. He made just a few mistakes and I wanted to go for too much so I missed a couple of my forehands and backhands and I didn't serve that well."
"I'm not tired. Every day is new and definitely I didn't play my best tennis today but he is in good shape. He won all his matches pretty easy."
"I hope that I keep going in doubles and the week was good for me and hopefully I will be better in doubles than singles." - Sports Network brief report
- Wire report on Saturday in St Petersburg
- Sport.ard recap
- Sport1 mention
- Yahoo Deutschland recap
- TennisMagazin.de update
- Netzeitung
- Sportgate
- Sky Sports
- Sportbild
These are all brief reports:
Friday 24 October
Schuettler Over Youzhny, Into Semifinals
Rainer Schuettler moved into his third semifinal of the past four tournaments as he defeated Mikhail Youzhny 63 63. (Schuettler broke out the US Open/Lyon shirt for this one to avoid the battle of the Fila redshirts.) Sargis Sargsian is his next opponent, as the Armenian defeated Burgsmuller 63 61 earlier in the day. It will be the fifth meeting between them, but the first of 2003. Previously, Schuettler won at Wimbledon 2002 63 60 61, the 2001 Australian Open 63 75 46 64, and their first contest back in 1998 when a then-ranked 115th Rainer beat 64th-ranked Sargsian in Newport 62 67 64. Sargsian won their tight 2001 Morocco meeting 64 57 57. This year he has been a quarterfinalist in Chennai, Bucharest, Wroclaw and Valencia and was a finalist in Moscow. After his Moscow and Vienna appearances, Sargsian is now ranked 42nd.
Other winners on Friday were (3) Kuerten def (6) Spadea 64 76 and continuing his great run, wildcard Corretja knocked off defending champ and the #2 seed Grosjean 46 62 76(5).
Saturday's Schedule: Corretja v Kuerten on Center Court at 2pm (local time) with Rainer's match to follow. Then, after some brief rest, Schuettler and Kohlmann play their semifinal doubles match vs Prieto and Garcia.
- Reuters mention by Gennady Fyodorov. Rainer said, ""It was a good match for me as I played very consistently. I think he was under a little bit of pressure playing here. We played two weeks ago in Lyon, he was leading there, but I won the match. Maybe he was still thinking about that match."
- Wire report on Friday's results. "We are good friends and so it was a difficult situation but I'm happy I'm in the semifinals," said Schuettler, adding "He's (Sargsian) played some good matches and beat everybody pretty easy. I saw the match against Lars Burgsmuller so I was surprised he didn't miss a ball, so I definitely have to play well." Sargsian's quote: "It's very difficult to play Schuettler. He's in very good shape right now."
- Sport.ard quick report
- Sport1 mini recap
- TennisMagazin.de quick blurb
- Netzeitung mention
- Channel News Asia brief recap
- Sports Networkreport
Thursday 23 October
Rainer Advances to 15th Quarters of 2003
Rainer Schuettler advanced to the St Petersburg Open quarterfinals - his third in four appearances here - with a 62 63 win over Vladimir Voltchkov. Already in the quarters are wildcard Alex Corretja and Vince Spadea, as well as Lars Burgsmuller who got through with a 64 64 win over Vicente. Sargis Sargsian will be Lars' next opponent.
Next up for Rainer is Mikhail Youzhny (5th seed), who defeated Kafelnikov 62 62. The Russian, a friend and frequent doubles partner of Schuettler, has reached the semifinals in Halle, Lyon (vs Rainer), and Doha and the quarterfinals in Stuttgart, Munich, and Bastad; he and Rainer were doubles semifinalists in Lyon. Youzhny, now ranked 41st, and Schuettler have played each other twice - both this year and both times the German came out ahead. Earlier this summer Rainer won their first round match at TMS Canada 62 64, and in the Lyon semis Youzhny nearly scored an upset before Schuettler cam back from 04 in the 3rd, 63 36 75.
Youzhny, who can be billed as the future of Russian tennis, has also had success at the St Petersurg Open, but both he and Rainer are after their first title here. Last year he defeated Younes El Aynaoui 36 64 63, Guillermo Coria 64 36 64, Andrei Pavel 61 63, and Vladimir Voltchkov 64 63 before falling in the finals to Sebastien Grosjean 57 46. In 2001 he beat Alex Calatrava 75 75 before losing a tight match to then-6th-ranked Yevgeny Kafelnikov 76(1) 67(6) 57.
Other winners on the day were: (3)G Kuerten (BRA) d V Hanescu (ROM) 76(1) 76(1) and defending champion (2)S Grosjean (FRA) d A Dupuis (FRA) 62 62.
Their Friday match is scheduled "not before 7pm" on Center Court.
Later in the day Rainer and doubles partner Michael Kohlmann scored an upset win over third-seeded Cibulec and Vizner 76(3) 62 in the quarterfinals. They next face the Argentinean pair of Sebastian Prieto and Martin Garcia who advanced to the semis in a walkover. They have won Salinas, were Prague finalists, and reached the semifinals at Kosice this year.
- Reuters wire story from Thursday about how "Steady Schuettler took slow road to the top."
- ATP's recap of the day. "Today was a pretty good match. I didn't miss a lot of balls. I felt pretty confident on the court and I won nearly all the rallies from the baseline, so I was pretty happy with the way I played," said Rainer. "I feel pretty fit. The longer the match is, the better I feel. I always have trouble in the beginning, but then when I'm warm, I enjoy it. I like to run and I like the long rallies. The longer I play, the better I feel." Mikhail, on facing Rainer, added "If you take a look at his matches, you will find out that he's man who doesn't know what a mistake is."
- ESPN's AP mini-mention
- Fox Sports article
- Netzeitung mention that Rainer and Lars advance to the quarters
- Sport.ard's same wire report
- Sport1 article
- Sportbild brief recap
- Sportgate writeup
- TennisMagazin.de article on win
Wednesday 22 October
Today Rainer defeated qualifier Jean-Rene Lisnard 76(5) 61 to advance to the second round of the St Petersburg Open. He came back from 0-4 in the tiebreak to get through the first set, but after that fell back into his normal game to claim the second. Schuettler, now an impressive 65-26 on the year, next takes on Belarussian Vladimir Voltchkov - his recent opponent from Davis Cup.
The two played a tough five sets in their singles first round, with Rainer winning 63 36 67 64 64. Voltchkov advanced after defeating wildcard Vadim Davletshin 76(6) 63 and this year he has appeared in five quarterfinals: San Jose (won doubles title there with Hyung-Taik Lee), Istanbul, Memphis, Delray Beach and Nottingham.
Schuettler's match is scheduled for 3pm on Center Court, and then Rainer must play doubles with Michael Kohlmann later that afternoon/evening. The quarterfinals match against the Czech team of Vizner and Cibulec is third up on Court 1 after Lars Burgsmuller v Vicente and Dupuis v Grosjean. Reports on the doubles can be seen below in Tuesday's writeup.
The Schuettler/Voltchkov winner faces the Kafelnikov/Mikhail Youzhny (5th seed) winner.
- Expatica article about the state of Germany's sports. Appeared after Tokyo and Lyon but I didn't want it buried back in those past posts. "It's pretty tough coming after (Boris) Becker, (Michael) Stich and (Steffi) Graf," said the 27- year-old Schuettler. "Tommy Haas got to second in the world before he was injured, Nicolas Kiefer was fourth, and now I'm sixth. So you can't say, like some people at home, that German tennis is dead."
- ATP's recap of Wednesday in Russia. Rainer said, "The first set was pretty tough. He (Lisnard) played a lot of rallies and he played well. I always had a chance to break him but I didn't take my chances. And then I was 0-4 in the tiebreaker in the first set but I won 7-5. That was very important. The second set I played with much more confidence. I put more pressure on him."
- Netzeitung's quick recap
- TennisMagazin.de article. "The first set was rather hard, and I was happy that I found the way back," said Rainer.
- Sportgate's similar story
- Sport.ard mention of match and the results of the other German players.
- Sport1 recap
- Sportbild article
- Sports Illustrated AP wire report. "The first set was pretty tough with many rallies and I was lucky to be back from love-40 on a tiebreaker," Schuettler said. "In the second set I put much more pressure on him."
- Channel News Asia brief report
- Fox sports article
- San Francisco Gate blurb. Interesting Kafelnikov quote.
Tuesday 21 October
In doubles action, the German pair of Rainer Schuettler and Michael Kohlmann won their first round match against Anthony Dupuis and Andrei Olhovskiy, 62 75. They will next face a tough second round match against Tomas Cibulec and Pavel Vizner, the tourney's third seed. The Czech combo defeated Yevgeny Kafelnikov and Radek Stepanek 63 60 in their Tuesday match. This year Vizner and Cibulec have won Copenhagen and Stuttgart, were finalists in Marseille and Milan, and reached the semis at 's-Hertogenbosch, Halle, Long Island, and Munich. In the ATP Doubles Race, they are currently 12th, but only 30 points out of 9th place.
Rainer's singles match against Lisnard is scheduled for "not before 5pm" on Center Court. Try the ATP site for updated scores, the tournament site for an online scoreboard and a possible Media Player video, and Bet & Win for a ticker.
They play late here, it's 11pm St P time and the Kuerten match just finished the first set.
Monday 20 October
After a second round loss in Madrid, Rainer Schuettler had some days off to rest up and prepare for the St. Petersburg Open. This is Rainer's fourth appearance at the St. Petersburg Open since 1998. (Of note: there is a Media Player option on the site.)
His first match is against Jean-Rene Lisnard (FRA) and it appears to be scheduled for Wednesday. This will be the fourth meeting between the two, with the Frenchman having a 2-1 advantage. This year at the French Open, Rainer won in the 2nd round 46 62 64 60 while they started the year in Chennai where Lisnard won 26 57 in the quarterfinals. Their first meeting was the 2002 US Open where Rainer retired at 63 76(2) 46 04. In 2003 Lisnard reached the semifinals in Chennai and was in the quarters at Prostejov and Wroclaw.
Rainer is the top seed for this event, followed by Grosjean, Kuerten, Mirnyi, Youzhny, Spadea, Gaudio and Safin. Nicolas Kiefer and Lars Burgsmuller are the other German singles players in this event.
Schuettler is also in the doubles draw with countryman Michael Kohlmann, they face Anthony Dupuis (FRA) and Andrei Olhovskiy (RUS) in the first round on Tuesday as the last match on Court 2. The German duo has teamed up before: 2003 in Feb for World Group Davis Cup play vs Argentina, March in Scottsdale and Miami TMS and May at the Hamburg TMS; 2001 Munich in April and Hamburg TMS in May; June 2000 for Halle and Oct 1999 at the Stuttgart Indoor. Previously in this event, Rainer faired quite well in his three showings (1998, 2000 and 2001), and after spending 2002 in Stockholm he's returned to action at the "Peterburgsky."
In 1998, back when the event was in February, he lost to D. Hrbaty 36 46 in the first round while in 2000 the 56th ranked Schuettler had victories over Harel Levy (ISR) (57) 61 63 and David Prinosil (GER) (43) 62 63 before falling to Marat Safin (RUS) (2) 46 61 36 in the quarters. In 2001 he upset Juan Carlos Ferrero (ESP) (5) 76(10) 64, beat Daniel Vacek (CZE) (182) 62 64, defeated Max Mirnyi (BLR) (30) 75 63 in the quarters and then Michael Llodra (FRA) (141) 63 64 in the semifinals. He was stopped again by Safin (11), this time in the finals, 63 36 36. Rainer entered this last tournament of the year ranked 46th and finished the year at 48.
Play tends to begin at noon and 1pm (local time) on the courts and the evening session begins at 7pm. St. Petersburg is 2 hours ahead of Germany and 8 for NY.
Draws and order of play for event can be found here on the ATP website.
posted by Sprtswrtr @ 3:15 PM
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