Ajeet Rai and Tom Fancutt have justified their top seeding by winning the doubles title in Brisbane over fourth seeds Joshua Charlton and Emile Hudd. Rai and Fancutt got the first break of serve in the fifth game after initially being up 15-40. Charlton and Hudd saved the first two break points before losing the decider, but came back to win the next game after Rai and Fancutt had been up 40-0. Almost unbelievably, the next game went exactly the same way, even to the deciding point being lost on a double fault. Games went with serve from there on, Rai and Fancutt closing out the set after 42 minutes.
The second set didn’t have any deuces, and the only break of serve came when the fifth game again proved a stumbling block for Charlton and Hudd. They held to love to keep themselves in the hunt at the end of the set, but Rai and Fancutt served out to love to claim the Championship after an hour and 12 minutes. The final score was 6-4, 6-4.
It’s the tenth ITF doubles title for Rai, sitting alongside the Challenger title that he won in his first tournament at that level. Fancutt, who’s a few years older than Rai, was collecting his 25th ITF doubles title. They will now head to the Gold Coast for another $25,000 tournament next week.