It was a stuttery start for both teams when Alex Klintcharov and Zaharije-Zak Talic played the Japanese alternates, Tomohiro Masabayashi and Jumpei Yamasaki, in the first round of doubles in Brisbane this afternoon, with both teams losing their opening service game. Klintcharov and Talic broke again in the sixth game before saving three break points from 15-40. Masabayashi and Yamasaki then held to love before Klintcharov and Talic had to get through another deciding point before serving out the set after 32 minutes.
It was Masabayashi and Yamasaki who had to get through a deciding point when they served first in the second set, and they survived another in the seventh game before being broken in the ninth. That left Klintcharov and Talic serving for the match, but they could only save one break point from 30-40 before Masabayashi and Yamasaki were able to level the scores.
The next two games saw comfortable holds, and that took them to a tie-break. The Japanese pair were immediately on the back foot when their first server started with a double fault, and their second server lost his second point to have them down two mini-breaks before they got to the change of ends. The second server from the Australasian team lost his second point after they swapped over, but the first Japanese server got broken again to give Klintcharov and Talic four match points. He did win his second point, but Klintcharov and Talic held their serve to end the match after an hour and 18 minutes. The final score was 6-3, 7-6 (3).