Noah Perfetti and Federico Valle had to get through deciding points in their first two service games, and again in their fourth, so it was perhaps a bit surprising that they were the first pair to break serve when they played Finn Reynolds and Roy Stepanov in the first round of doubles in Benicarlo early this morning.
Unfortunately for the top seeds, that break to love came in the tenth game, so it cost them the first set after they had been on court for 34 minutes. The second set was the exact opposite, with Reynolds and Stepanov breaking in the first game, and the rest of the set, which took 30 minutes, going with serve.
With more mini-breaks than holds, the match tie-break must have been a nerve-wracking affair, with whoever served first out of Reynolds and Stepanov losing their first point, but the second Italian server lost both of his. The other two players each lost one of their next pair of points, but the next four serves were all held before the second server from the top seeds lost both of his points.
The first Italian then won his first serve to give his team two match points, but Reynolds and Stepanov saved both of those to be level when they changed ends for the third time. They lost their next serve to give the Italians a third match point but, once again, the second server lost both times. That gave Reynolds and Stepanov their first match point, which was saved by Perfetti and Valle, but they won their second serve to get a second match point. This time they were able to convert it, ending the match after an hour and 21 minutes. The final score was 4-6, 6-4, 13-11.