The only flaw in Rubin Statham’s opening game against Alejandro Tabilo in their second round qualifying match at the ATP Challenger tournament in Brasilia was that his fourth serve went into the net, rather than being an ace like the first three. The fifth serve saw Tabilo’s backhand return disappear over the baseline, and Statham completed probably the best service game I’ve ever seen from him in not much more than a minute. He made it five points in a row when he hit a beautiful forehand return down the line off the left-handed Tabilo, but the top seed eventually held after serving two aces of his own before safely getting through a deuce. Statham finished the next game with another ace after Tabilo lost the first great rally of the match with a cross-court forehand that went long.
Tabilo then held to love before breaking Statham’s serve, the only highlight for the New Zealander being an ace on the third point – and Tabilo was quite justified in complaining that the serve had landed on the wrong side of the centre line. Umpire Kilian Schnabel was unmoved, and in the end it didn’t matter. Tabilo finished his next game with two more aces before forcing Statham into a backhand error to go to deuce. Statham got the advantage with a fabulous inside-out forehand winner into the corner, and sealed the game with another ace.
Tabilo hit a beautiful inside-out forehand winner on the way to holding serve again, and he finished the game with his sixth ace to stay level with Statham in that department. Two aces and two unreturnable serves from Statham meant that he jumped to the lead again as far as aces were concerned, but Tabilo finished the set with an identical game – except that his took just 51 seconds. The set itself lasted for 32 minutes.
The second set started with two comfortable holds of serve, but Statham went AWOL in the third game. There were just four points, and Statham lost them all with unforced errors. To be fair, though, he shouldn’t have lost the first, as the great rally should have ended a shot earlier when Tabilo’s forehand looked to go long. Statham hit a beautiful forehand winner down the line in the next game, but that counted for little against three aces and an unreturnable serve.
Two more comfortable holds followed before we saw the best rally of the match. It lasted for 13 shots, just like the one Statham lost four games earlier, but this one ended with his beautiful forehand winner through the left side of the court. He got taken to deuce when Tabilo hit his best shot, a fabulous backhand lob, but two more winners from Statham completed another hold. An overhit backhand to end another great rally dropped Tabilo back to a first deuce in the next game, and a cross-court forehand into the tramlines cost him a second. He forced Statham to leave his next backhand return short, and completed the longest game of the match when he hit a beautiful forehand winner down the line after just over five and a half minutes.
Statham’s next game included the shot of the match, a fabulous inside-out backhand drop shot, and he conceded just a double fault as he again held serve. He was still down that one break, though, which meant that Tabilo was now serving for the match. An overhit forehand meant that he was now facing a break point for the first time in the match, but he saved that with ace number 14. A service winner down the middle saw the ball squirt away off Statham’s racquet, bringing up a first match point, and Statham was forced to leave a backhand short of the net to end the match after an hour and 14 minutes. The final score was 6-4, 6-4.