You really had to applaud Tadeas Paroulek’s efforts in Pardubice on Saturday, the Czech 25 year old spending three and three-quarter hours on court before winning his singles quarter-final, and then losing his semi-final after nearly two and a half hours more. As if that wasn’t enough, he and Matt Donald then had to play another hour and a quarter in their doubles quarter-final before they ran out of light.
They returned on Sunday to finish off that match, which luckily took only another 20 minutes, but then had to face the top seeds in the semi-final, with the winner to play the final after that as well! Although the first set against Jan Jermar and David Poljak was reasonably close, Donald and Paroulek ran away with the second set to book a clash with fourth seeds Dominik Recek and Daniel Siniakov in the showdown for the title.
It was Paroulek who started proceedings and, although he did hit a beautiful forehand winner through the middle of the court at 0-30, his next two backhands went into the net. Recek finished with three unreturnable serves to consolidate the break before Paroulek started Donald’s first game by hitting a superb inside-out forehand volley into the corner. The fantastic short rally that followed was ended by a forehand volley from Recek, but Paroulek smashed away the final volley in the game to allow his partner to hold.
The next three games went with serve, the only real highlight coming on the first point of the last of those when Siniakov hit a beautiful backhand winner down the tramlines. Recek hit a lovely backhand winner down the tramlines to take Donald’s second point, with the latter being forced to send a backhand over the baseline to concede the first deuce in the match. Recek got the deciding point back in play, and Paroulek was forced to hit a forehand volley into the net to give up a second break.
That left Siniakov serving for the set, and he won the second point with a fabulous cross-court overhead volley before finishing a great short rally by dumping a forehand in the net. His nice cross-court forehand winner that followed gave his team three set points, and he converted the first by acing Donald out wide. The set had taken 25 minutes.
Paroulek held comfortably to start the second set, despite Recek finishing a good short rally with a beautiful forehand winner through the left-hand side of the court. Recek served next, and was going along safely until Siniakov hit a forehand volley into the net to give away a break point. Recek did the same with an inside-out forehand to concede the break, but Paroulek won and lost great eleven shot rallies on consecutive points when Donald served, the second of those giving away a break point. Recek was forced to hit a backhand into the net, and Siniakov overhit a backhand volley to lose the deciding point.
Donald engineered another break when he won great rallies on the last two points of Siniakov’s game, forcing the latter to hit a forehand into the net on the first before smashing a volley into Siniakov’s foot to win the second. Paroulek had to save a break point after being forced into an error in the next game, and they got to deuce when Recek was forced into a backhand error. There was another great rally on the deciding point, which went to Donald when his (luckily) softish volley deflected off Siniakov’s arm.
The best rally in the match came when Recek was serving to keep his team in the set, with the incredible 16 shot rally being ended by a beautiful forehand winner down the tramlines from Paroulek. That took them to deuce, giving them a set point, but Paroulek mishit a forehand high and far over the baseline to let Recek hold. Donald was still going to be serving for the set and, despite a beautiful backhand return down the tramlines by Recek to win the second point, wrapped it up after 28 minutes when he forced Recek to hit his forehand return over the baseline.
The respective periods of dominance had been such that a match tie-break looked to be a pretty fair way to decide the result, but both Paroulek and Recek double faulting on their first points wasn’t something I expected to see. They made it through the first change of ends without any more hiccups, but Paroulek lost the second of his next pair of points when his mishit forehand landed just over the baseline. Again, though, the mini-break came straight back, Recek hitting a backhand volley into the net to lose the last point before they changed ends.
It got worse after they swapped around, because Siniakov was forced to rebound a volley over the baseline when Donald hit the ball straight at him when trying to end a rally between Recek and himself. Donald won both his serves when Siniakov hit forced and unforced backhand errors, and that gave his team three Championship points. They couldn’t do much about the first when Siniakov hit a fabulous forehand winner down the left tramline, but Donald would have been kicking himself for missing the second when he hit a forehand into the net.
They couldn’t convert the third chance, either, as Siniakov smashed away a cross-court volley to level the scores as they went to the third change of ends. Just as Recek had lost both his serves covering the second change of ends, Paroulek lost both of his as well. Recek got the second point when he hit a huge inside-out forehand into Paroulek’s racquet to give his team their first Championship point, but that was saved when Siniakov was forced to leave a backhand volley short of the net at the end of another great rally.
He made up for that by winning another great rally on the next point with a far better backhand volley, gaining Championship point number two in the process, and that was converted when Paroulek was forced to hit a forehand into the net. The final score was 6-2, 1-6, 12-10, and the match lasted for an hour and 17 minutes. Siniakov may not be anywhere near as good a player as his big sister Katerina, the current women’s number one in doubles, but he’ll still appreciate the victory just as much as she does hers.