Doubles final ends in tiebreak thriller
Based on how it began, the doubles final of the Bakersfield Tennis Open looked as though it was going be a rout.
After a one-sided start, however, the match got much more competitive as the match progressed and it turned out to be a good battle between a pair of talented duos.
August Holmgren of Denmark and the United States’ Nathan Ponwith jumped out to a five games to zero lead in the first set and then held off a furious rally by Australia’s Patrick Harper and Emile Hudd of Great Britain to win the USTA Pro Circuit event 6-1, 7-6 (7-4) Saturday at Bakersfield Racquet Club.
“It was an unbelievable week,” Ponwith said. “August is a great partner. We had a lot of tough matches. Today in the final I thought we really raised our level against two tough opponents.”
Ponwith said the key to the victory was the serves and returns.
“Once we had our serves going we were able to stay in control and take a lot big risks on our return games and put our opponents in tough positions and do what we could,” Ponwith said. “Just try to take over the net and get enough free points on those first few shots.”
Holmgren and Ponwith, the No. 4 seed, lost only six points in the first five games of the first set as they seized early control.
“August came out fired up and I was just riding his wave,” Ponwith said. “He was just making it rain and I had my umbrella. I was just trying not to get wet. This guy comes out, he goes big serves. I’m just cleaning up at the net. I think we caught them off guard a little bit with how we returned. I think we came out playing big. They definitely made the adjustments. They’re a great team so it was a very close second set. But the first set we were loose and just had a lot opportunities that we took advantage of early.”
The second set started with Hudd, using his big serve to keep Holmgren and Ponwith off balance, team with Harper to win the first four points and claim a 1-0 lead.
Both teams continued to hold serve until Ponwith was broken, giving Hudd and Harper a 5-3 second-set lead.
Holmgren and Ponwith immediately returned the favor, breaking Hudd on the way to winning three straight games to move ahead 6-5.
Hudd and Harper held on a forced a second-set tie break.
But after jumping out to a 2-0 lead in the first-to-seven set decider, Holmgren and Ponwith won seven of the next nine points to close out the match.
“With doubles it’s always such small margins, who wins and who loses,” Holmgren said. “So even though we got a big lead in the first set it doesn’t necessarily mean it’s going to be easy. We knew that and we were ready. They’re a very good team. It comes down to serves and returns and in the end we hit big off the baseline and we banked on that. We put our money on that we were going to hit some big returns in big
moments and force them to be uncomfortable at the net. They want to control the points from the net, we want to control the points from the baseline, and we were just a little bit better in key moments.”
Hudd agreed that the match came down to which team won more of the “key” points.
“Sometimes in doubles if you don’t get the big points, you come out on the losing side,” Hudd said. “Today we lost a couple of big points there. They came out with some good tennis and maybe we could have played slightly better.”
Both teams acknowledged that Holmgren and Ponwith’s hot start set the tone for the match, but that wasn’t the only reason for the final result.
“Any time a team comes out pretty hot and puts us on the back foot it can be tough,” Hudd said. “I think maybe a little bit of shock and so we went into our shell a little bit. But beginning of the second set when we got a little bit of momentum we sort of started to play the level we can and made it a more competitive match.”
A big reason the match got more competitive as it played out was due to Hudd’s stellar serving.
He and Harper won four of five games he served, including all three times he served in the second set.
“I think being a tour guy serving is an important part of my game,” Hudd said.
“I got broken my first service game of the match and probably put us on the back foot, but once I found my rhythm and hit the spots it took a lot of pressure off us.”