Ajeet Rai’s doubles semi-final at Carrara on the Gold Coast began on Friday night, when he and Tom Fancutt took on the Japanese pair of Keisuke Saitoh and Naoki Tajima. The left-handed Saitoh served first, and didn’t get off to a great start when he lost the great rally on the first point by hitting a cross-court forehand wide. Rai hit a beautiful backhand return down the tramlines to win the third point, and another big return by him forced Tajima into an error to lose the game.
Fancutt started nearly as badly, his forehand into the net giving away break points. He saved the first with a fabulous forehand winner down the tramlines, and the second when Saitoh was forced to hit a backhand volley into the net, and Rai smashed away a volley to win the deciding point. Tajima lost a couple of points after being up 40-0, but was then credited with an ace to win the game when his serve came off the full face of Fancutt’s racquet! Sure, it went straight into the ground, but an ace it was not.
There were four great rallies when Rai served to complete the opening rotation, with he and Fancutt losing the first two when forced into errors. Tajima won the third with a nice overhead volley to give his team a break point, but Saito blew that chance with a backhand over the baseline. He was lucky that it didn’t matter in the end, because Fancutt then lost the deciding point when he ended the best rally of the match after 17 shots by dumping a forehand into the net. He was furious with himself, flinging his racquet into the fence before going and sitting down. I had no idea why he wasn’t continuing until the tournament referee made an appearance and I realised that it must have started to rain. The drizzle was so faint that I couldn’t actually see it, but it was enough to make the surface slippery, and everyone eventually left the court.
There was no further play, and it was nearly 24 hours before the match resumed. It was sheer luck that I got home and turned on the stream to find out that I had missed only a couple of points after the restart. There was far less drama in the second rotation of serve, where all four players had comfortable holds, and then it was back to Saitoh for his third turn at the line. He lost a great rally on the opening point when forced to hit an overhead backhand volley into the net, and another one two points later when he hit a cross-court backhand volley wide. An overhit forehand volley from Tajima gave away a break point, which Fancutt lost when he hit a forehand into the net, but Saitoh lost the deciding point when he was forced to hit a backhand into the net. That left Fancutt serving for the set, and he closed it out comfortably when Saitoh and Tajima each missed their final return of serve. The set had taken 38 minutes.
Tajima started the second set, and was taken to deuce when a great return from Fancutt jammed his attempted backhand into the ground. There was a great rally on the deciding point, but Tajima finished it with a beautiful overhead forehand volley to hold serve. Rai then held to love, but Saitoh had exactly the same point by point nightmare that he had had in the opening game of the match. Fancutt won the first point with a beautiful cross-court backhand lob to end a great short rally, and the game was completed by a fabulous backhand return down the sideline from Rai.
Fancutt held comfortably before Tajima again ended at deuce, but the path to get there was slightly different from that in his previous game. Rai hit a beautiful backhand return down the singles sideline to win the third point, and won the fifth with a smash to end another great short rally, but Tajima saved the break point by acing Fancutt down the middle. Rai took the deciding point, but his backhand return flew away over the baseline. He then lost his next service game when Fancutt was forced to hit a backhand into the net, but started the next game from Saitoh with another fabulous backhand return down the tramlines. Fancutt took the next point with an outstanding overhead forehand winner, but he lost the next two points with errors before Saitoh gave away a break point with a double fault. Tajima saved that with a smash, and Fancutt was forced into an error to lose the deciding point.
Fancutt had another comfortable hold before hitting a fabulous cross-court backhand winner off Tajima, and Rai hit a fabulous cross-court forehand lob in his own game before hitting a forehand over the baseline to give away a break point. He saved that with his second ace of the game, and an unreturnable serve to Saitoh took care of the deciding point. Saitoh and Fancutt then had comfortable holds, and that took them to a tie-break.
A double fault from Rai was cancelled out when Tajima lost the next point through a forced error, but the Japanese pair got the advantage again when Rai was jammed up on a backhand volley to lose a great rally on Fancutt’s second point. Once again the mini-break was cancelled out straight away, this time when Saitoh was forced into a mishit after chasing back a lob, but Tajima lost his second point as well when it was his turn to have a backhand forced into the ground. That left Rai needing only to win his two serves to take the match. Tajima’s inside-out forehand return went wide, and Saitoh’s backhand return went into the net to end the match after an hour and 33 minutes. The final score was 6-4, 7-6 (4).