Ajeet Rai served first in his second round qualifying match against Makoto Ochi in Sydney yesterday, and hit a beautiful cross-court forehand drop shot before finishing the game after two deuces with a service winner and an ace. The left-handed Ochi responded with a fabulous drop shot of his own before Rai served the longest game in the set. He hit three aces along the way, but an overhit forehand after the fifth deuce gave Ochi his third break point, and a great 19 shot rally ended with Rai being forced to hit his final forehand over the baseline. He got the break straight back when Ochi finished the next game with two backhand unforced errors, but the game which followed was marred by controversy at the end.
Ochi hit a fabulous forehand winner down the line, Rai responding with a stunning inside-out forehand drop shot which I thought was going to drift into the tramlines, but it dropped on the line. It was after the second deuce that tempers flared, as Rai’s cap fell off after a couple of shots in the rally. He caught it, hit a backhand to get the ball away and stopped while Ochi tapped away a forehand winner. Rai asked umpire Marko Savic why he hadn’t called a let, because this was what had happened when Rai’s cap fell off in his previous match. The argument got somewhat heated, although I couldn’t hear the umpire’s response, but I thought it was an over-reaction to then give Rai a point penalty for verbal abuse when, as far as I could tell, there hadn’t been any. The penalty ended the game, and Ochi consolidated the break by holding to love.
Rai did the same, finishing the game with an underarm serve that he followed with a fabulous cross-court backhand winner, and the game was all over in just 49 seconds. He held to love again the next time he served, again finishing with an underarm serve, but this time the cross-court winner was a beautiful forehand. Ochi was now serving for the set, but he lost his first two points before the umpire stopped a great rally after 17 shots because one of the ball kids at the far end of the court dropped a ball. Ochi’s volley got jammed into the ground when the point was replayed, and Rai completed a break to love with an inside-out forehand winner to end another good rally.
Rai then held comfortably, meaning that Ochi now had to hold to stay in the set, but five unforced errors between them more than ruined the impression made by Rai’s fabulous forehand volley to end a great rally on the second point. The last two of Ochi’s mistakes were backhands into the tramlines, and the last one ended the set after 53 minutes.
Rai held comfortably to start, but two of the three longest rallies in the match meant that the next game, although having only three deuces, took eight and a half minutes to be the longest in the match. A forehand volley over the baseline took Ochi to 0-40, but three unforced errors from Rai, including a backhand into the net to end the first of those rallies, took them to the first deuce. Rai got the advantage with a beautiful inside-out forehand winner before hitting a cross-court forehand into the tramlines to end a 20 shot rally on the next point.
He then forced Ochi to hit a backhand volley into the net before his own backhand return went long, and Ochi won the two points he needed after the final deuce. The next three games saw comfortable holds, but a fabulous cross-court forehand winner from Ochi wasn’t enough in the next game when the two unforced errors which followed cost him a break of serve.
Rai hit another fabulous inside-out forehand winner in the next game on the way to holding serve, and that left Ochi needing to hold to stay in the match. Rai started with two fabulous cross-court backhand winners, and a cross-court forehand into the tramlines from Ochi gave away the first match point. He saved that with an unreturnable serve, but lost a good rally on the next point with a backhand into the net, and gave away the match with a forehand over the baseline. The final score was 7-5, 6-2, and they had been on court for an hour and 37 minutes.