As I wrote earlier, Kiranpal Pannu got broken to love in the opening game of his second round match against Enzo Wallart at the indoor ITF tournament in Edmonton, but I couldn’t see it because there was a problem at that time with the ITF streams of all the matches around the world. I was finally able to start watching during the fourth game, and was just in time to see Pannu win a great rally with a fabulous cross-court backhand, and that was followed by Wallart losing another great rally to allow Pannu to break back.
The next game started with two beautiful shots from Wallart, a forehand lob being followed by a beautiful cross-court backhand winner, and Pannu copied the second of those before hitting a backhand into the net to give away break points. He saved the first by forcing Wallart into an error, and a great rally on the second one finished tamely when Wallart hit a forehand over the baseline, and his two forehands into the net after the deuce allowed Pannu to hold.
There weren’t any better games that I saw than the next one, with four rallies that increased in quality and an ace to finish. Wallart finished the first rally with a beautiful forehand volley down the line, and Pannu lost the second with a backhand into the tramlines. He won the great rally on the next point with a fabulous forehand winner down the line, but was forced to hit a backhand into the net to end the fantastic 20 shot exchange that came next.
There were three more great rallies in the next game, but what was probably the best shot I saw from Pannu was his fantastic forehand drop volley to bring up the game point, with Wallart then losing the last of the rallies with a backhand into the net. He made up for that with a wonderful angled forehand winner off a fabulous drop shot return of serve from Pannu in the next game before hitting a beautiful backhand drop volley to win the third of four great rallies when Pannu served again. The last of those four was the best, though, Pannu taking the honours with a backhand winner down the line after 17 shots.
Wallart then held serve in a game that seemed really strange because it had no rallies at all! There were three more when Pannu served again, but this time he lost one with a forehand into the tramlines, and his second forehand into the net gave up a break at a critical stage and left Wallart serving for the set.
What became the longest game of the match had only three deuces, but it lasted for nearly eleven minutes because of six great rallies and a dispute with the umpire. The end of the third rally was where the controversial call was made. Wallart hit a backhand into the net on the 15th shot, and there was no dispute about that, but what he was really unhappy about was that the incoming shot from Pannu had gone long but wasn’t called out. Even though the action was at the far end of the court, I agreed with the Frenchman, because I had clearly seen the ball land over the baseline. The umpire, however, was unmoved, and that gave Pannu a chance to break back. He couldn’t convert it, however, being forced to hit a forehand into the net to end another good rally.
The great rally which followed the deuce ended when Wallart hit what was certainly the best strike that I saw, a wonderful overhead backhand volley on the 17th shot to give him his first set point. He overhit a forehand to give away the second deuce, as did Pannu to finish another good rally next up, but the New Zealander hit a beautiful backhand return down the line to get to deuce number three. He was forced into a return error to give away a third set point, and an ace out wide from Wallart completed the set after an hour and nine minutes.
It probably wasn’t surprising that the level dropped somewhat as they started the second set, two backhands into the net from Pannu giving away a deuce in the opening game. Wallart hit a beautiful cross-court backhand winner to get the advantage, but Pannu won the good rally that followed with a forehand volley down the line. An ace gave him the advantage, and Wallart found the net with a forehand to lose the game.
He did exactly the same to lose the next game as well, and Pannu looked to be on track for an easy hold at 40-0 before it was his turn to find the net. Wallart won the next point with a beautiful backhand return down the line, and got to deuce when Pannu ended the good rally on the next point by mishitting a ball straight up into the roof, but two aces out wide were a comprehensive way to consolidate the break.
Wallart gave away the first deuce in the next game with another forehand into the net, and Pannu ended the rally which followed with a backhand in the same place, but what came next had to be the best rally of the match – even including anything from the early games that I hadn’t seen. Both players were charging all around the court, retrieving at least half a dozen shots that should have been winners, until Pannu ended the incredible contest with a fabulous forehand winner down the line after 20 shots.
Once again, though, Wallart was unhappy with the call, but this time I wasn’t on his side. The shot had clearly caught at least some of the line, so Wallart was going to have wait a bit longer for the game to end. He lost the great rally on the next point when his final forehand landed short of the net, and that gave Pannu a break point and a chance to go up 4-0. Instead he swung a cross-court backhand into the tramlines, and that was where his next two backhands went as well.
The next few games went with serve, the highlight being a fabulous cross-court backhand winner from Wallart to end a good rally in the seventh game, but his hold in the eighth meant that Pannu would now be serving for the set. Instead, forced errors meant that he was facing a break point, and he hit a backhand over the baseline to let Wallart back on serve.
There was another great rally to start the next game, Pannu finding the net after 16 shots, but two aces from Wallart to end the game meant that the scores were back level. The next game was a disaster for Pannu, with a forehand and a backhand into the net, the latter ending another good rally, being followed by a cross-court backhand into the tramlines, and a backhand over the baseline gave Wallart a chance to serve for the match.
He lost the short rally on the first point, but followed that with two unreturnable serves. The last great rally of the match ended when Pannu hit a backhand into the net to give away two match points, and another great serve saw his forehand return go into the net. The final score was 7-5, 7-5, and the match took two hours and 14 minutes.