Ajeet Rai served first when he and Alex Klintcharov took on the Japanese second seeds, Kokoro Isomura and Shunsuke Nakagawa, in the double final in Nusa Dua, but even an ace to Nakagawa was no use when Klintcharov got forced into forehand volley errors to start and finish the game, that latter coming at the end of a great rally between Rai and Isomura.
Klintcharov looked to make that up when he hit a beautiful cross-court backhand winner to take Nakagawa to deuce, but he lost the deciding point when he was forced to hit his backhand return into the net. He did hold serve next up, as did Isomura, with Rai then hitting a beautiful inside-out forehand volley and a lovely backhand lob to complete a hold to love. Nakagawa didn’t drop a point either, but Klintcharov lost his serve when Isomura and Nakagawa each hit a beautiful forehand return.
Isomura was now serving for the set, and the second point saw the shot of the match, a fabulous forehand stop volley from Nakagawa. He did lose the great rally on the next point when forced to hit a forehand volley into the net, but he smashed away the final volley to complete the set after 25 minutes.
Rai and Nakagawa each completed a routine hold as they started the second set, but it was perhaps a foreboding of things to come when Klintcharov hit a backhand volley over the baseline to end the last of the three great 13 shot rallies that were included in the match. Isomura gave his team a break point when he hit a beautiful forehand winner down the tramlines to complete another great rally, but he dumped a forehand into the net to give away the deuce. It didn’t matter to the Japanese pair, as Klintcharov double faulted to lose the game anyway.
Isomura then held to consolidate the advantage before Nakagawa hit a beautiful backhand return down the tramlines off Rai to bring up another break point. This time a decider wasn’t needed, as Isomura’s cross-court backhand volley completed the good short rally that came next. Nakagawa held comfortably, and that left Klintcharov serving to stay in the set.
The highlight was a second serve ace out wide to Nakagawa, but the umpire, for some reason, decided that it wasn’t worthy of being included in the match statistics. I don’t know why, as it was nowhere near Nakagawa’s racquet, but in the end it didn’t matter. Klintcharov went on to hold, which meant that Isomura would be looking to serve for the title.
Forced and unforced errors from Rai were followed by a beautiful backhand volley from Nakagawa that he steered back along the net, and that gave the Japanese pair four Championship points. An overhead forehand from Isomura flew off Rai’s racquet, and the victory went to the higher-ranked pair after exactly an hour. The final score was 6-2, 6-2.