Finn Reynolds and James Watt faced yet another left-hander in the deuce court when they played Marc-Andrea Huesler and Garrett Johns in the doubles final in Matsuyama, and it was the tall Swiss left-hander who served first. It was Johns, though, who created the first highlight when he ended the first great rally with a fabulous forehand winner down the line, and his partner completed a comfortable hold by hitting a beautiful cross-court forehand winner. Watt and Johns both held to love before Reynolds lost his first point by hitting a forehand volley into the net, but he finished by acing Huesler out wide.
The latter then faced a break point after Watt hit a nice inside-out forehand volley into the tramlines, but an unreturnable serve to the giant New Zealander got them back to deuce, and Watt was more than a bit annoyed with himself when he lost the deciding point by pushing a forehand volley into the net. The next game was where it all went wrong for the top seeds, Huesler starting with a beautiful cross-court backhand return into the tramlines before his final forehand on the next point clipped the net cord to fly over Watt’s waiting racquet and land safely at the back of the court.
Watt was then forced to hit a forehand volley over the baseline at the end of a good short rally, and Johns completed a break to love with a beautiful backhand return down the singles sideline before holding to love to consolidate the break. Reynolds’ second game opened with the best rally in the match, a fantastic display that went for 15 shots before the New Zealand left-hander smacked an overhead volley into the right-hand tramline to take the point. He added a fabulous overhead backhand volley to end another great rally two points later, but lost his next second serve to a beautiful cross-court backhand return by Johns.
Watt smashed away a volley to win the game, but Huesler was still going to be serving for the set. He put his first backhand into the net, and Watt hit a winning volley as well, but Johns hit two of those, his soft backhand at the net winning the last point to complete the set after 25 minutes.
As if things weren’t already bad enough for the New Zealanders, they got worse when Huesler won another fantastic rally as Watt served the opening game in the second set. The 14th shot was a nice forehand volley that he steered into the right-hand tramline to create break points, and he converted the first of those with a fabulous forehand return down the tramlines.
Huesler held comfortably to consolidate their advantage, but the penultimate point was won from one of several serves that we’ve seen this week that appeared to land far enough past the service line to have been called as faults. It was then Johns’ turn to hit a fabulous forehand return down the tramlines, this time off Reynolds, with the latter giving away a deuce when he hit a forehand volley into the net. Johns got the deciding point back in play, with Watt being forced to hit another forehand volley into the net to put the New Zealanders even deeper into the mire.
Reynolds started the next game with a beautiful backhand return down the tramlines, but Johns didn’t lose another point as the unseeded pair stretched their run to five games in a row. That sequence finally ended when Watt held next time round, but only after he had given away a deuce by hitting a forehand over the baseline. Reynolds won the deciding point with an overhead volley, and then it was up to Huesler to put his team a game closer to the title.
A complete miscalculation of an attempted volley by Johns gave away two break points, but Reynolds was forced into a return error on the first before Johns partially redeemed himself by getting them to deuce with a nice overhead volley. Reynolds safely returned the deciding point, but Watt was forced to leave a backhand volley short of the net. Reynolds then held safely, but Johns was going to be the first to serve for the title.
He was facing break points after hitting an inside-out forehand wide, but saved the first with an unreturnable serve to Reynolds before Huesler lost the second by hitting an inside-out forehand volley wide. Watt now had to hold to keep his team in the match, but Johns started with a fabulous forehand winner into the right-hand tramline that was probably the shot of the match, and took them to deuce with a beautiful backhand return down the tramlines.
That gave Huesler and Johns their first Championship point, but a great serve to Johns saw the American lose the deciding point when he was forced to bounce his backhand return into the net. His partner now had a chance to serve out the match, and he added more Championship points in a disappointing manner when he “aced” Watt down the middle.
While it can often be hard to judge the length of serves, there’s no such difficulty seeing the direction of serves down the centre line, and this one landed comfortably on the wrong side. Huesler now had three more chances to secure the trophy for his team, but another great serve saw Reynolds’ backhand return fly over the baseline to end the contest after 58 minutes. The final score was 6-3, 6-4 and, even though they lost, reaching the final has brought an Australian Open berth tantalisingly closer for the New Zealand pair.