Ajeet Rai has lost three M25 doubles finals since he and Josh Charlton beat Jake and Jesse Delaney to win the title in Swan Hill at the end of March, so he must have been hoping his fortunes would change when he and Finn Bass reached the last round in Perth. They were facing the top seeds, Masamichi Imamura and Naoki Tajima, but were on a high after beating the Delaneys in the semi-final.
Rai and Imamura held comfortably to start, the latter hitting a beautiful forehand winner down the left tramline in the second game, while Bass finished with the first double fault and the first ace in the match. Rai copied Imamura’s shot from earlier before Bass smashed away a volley to create break points against Tajima. He and Rai then hit unforced backhand errors to drop back to deuce, but Rai hit a beautiful forehand return down the left sideline to get the break.
Rai got taken to deuce as well when Bass hit a backhand into the net, but Imamura lost the good short rally on the deciding point when he hit a forehand over the baseline. He followed that by hitting two double faults in his last three points to give away a second break, but Bass went down 0-40 while trying to serve out the set when Rai hit a forehand into the net. He saved the first two break points with unreturnable serves, and Rai got them to deuce with a smash. Another great serve saw Imamura’s forehand return of the deciding point go long, and the set was complete after 25 minutes.
Imamura served first in the second set, and each side hit two unforced errors before a beautiful forehand return down the tramlines from Rai gave his team a break point. Even after replaying it several times I still have absolutely no idea what happened at the end of the point that followed, as the ball appeared to end up in the net after being hit by Bass, yet he and Rai were given the point to complete the game. The Japanese pair were just standing there, looking puzzled, as Bass and Rai walked off, with the latter explaining something to them that the effects microphone had no chance of picking up.
Imamura hit a beautiful cross-court forehand winner to get a break point off Bass, which Rai saved with another smash, but he hit a backhand volley into the net to end a good short rally on the deciding point. Perhaps it was justice for the top seeds that they got the break straight back. The next rotation of serve saw a full round of comfortable holds, and it wasn’t until Tajima served for the second time that there was any further excitement.
In a match that really didn’t have too many individual highlights, the best shot was probably a gorgeous soft volley from Rai to end a great rally after 12 shots. An overhit backhand volley from Tajima gave away another break point, but Bass blew the chance to grab another break when his backhand lob went over the baseline, which was also where his forehand return of the deciding point ended up.
Rai held comfortably again before Imamura’s poor serving day continued, this time getting broken to love when Rai and Bass finished the game with winning backhand volleys. That left Bass serving for the title, but there was still work to be done. Imamura hit a beautiful forehand lob down the middle of the court, and a double fault gave away a break point. An unreturnable serve to Tajima took them to deuce, and a Championship point, but Rai was forced to hit a forehand volley into the net to lose the deciding point.
It was Tajima’s turn to get safely through a service game, and it meant that Rai had to hold to force a tie-break. He hit a beautiful forehand winner down the tramlines on the way to doing just that, and it got even better when Imamura lost the best rally of the match at the start of the tie-break when he was forced to hit a forehand volley into the net. The remaining points to the change of ends all went with serve, but Rai hit a forehand wide to lose his second point.
The advantage was restored when Bass hit a straightforward cross-court forehand volley to win the first of Imamura’s next pair of points, and disaster struck for the top seeds when Rai hit a beautiful forehand volley down the right-hand side of the court to win the second. That gave the third seeds three more Championship points, some 12 minutes after the first, and Rai smashed away another volley to convert the first of them after an hour and 13 minutes. The final score was 6-1, 7-6 (3). It was Rai’s 17th ITF doubles title, and he has a Challenger one as well.