Ajeet Rai only played doubles in Tbilisi this week, the first time in more than 18 months that he hasn’t played singles in a tournament. He made up for missing those extra matches by getting to the final as top seed with his Japanese partner, Kaichi Uchida, where they faced second seeds Aleksandre Bakshi from Georgia and Lukas Pokorny from Slovakia, and it was the last-named who served first.
He aced Uchida and Rai to finish the game, the latter off a second serve, but it was a poor call from the line judge as the ball had landed well on the wrong side of the centre line. Pokorny hit a beautiful backhand return down the tramlines off Uchida, but it didn’t stop another comfortable hold, but the left-handed Bakshi was all over the place in his first game.
He, too, hit consecutive aces down the middle, but these two both landed clearly on the centre line, and the second took him to 40-0. Pokorny was forced to send volleys wide in both directions before Bakshi gave away a deuce with a double fault, but they won the deciding point when Rai was forced to hit a forehand volley over the baseline. The New Zealander then held to love before hit a fabulous cross-court forehand lob into the corner off Pokorny, who hit a beautiful forehand winner through the middle of the court to end a good rally before finishing the game with a lovely inside-out forehand winner.
Bakshi hit the shot of the day, a stunning forehand return down the tramlines, to start Uchida’s second game before the latter finished the fantastic 15 shot rally of the match with a fabulous cross-court forehand winner. He was forced to hit a backhand into the net to give away a deuce before losing the deciding point when he hit a cross-court forehand over the baseline.
Bakshi then held to love to consolidate the break, leaving Rai needing to hold to keep his team in the set. Pokorny followed a beautiful cross-court backhand volley with a lovely cross-court backhand lob, which Rai argued had landed past the baseline. Although there were judges on all the other lines, the baselines were being called by the chair umpire, who wouldn’t change his mind. That gave the second seeds three set points, but winning volleys from Rai and Uchida got them back to deuce before Pokorny’s great return of the deciding point forced Rai to hit his backhand wide. The set had taken 29 minutes.
Pokorny held to love to start the second set before Uchida was facing another break point when he double faulted for the second time in the game. Rai saved that by smashing away a volley, and a great serve to Bakshi on the deciding point saw the Georgian’s return go wide. He did start his own game with a beautiful cross-court forehand winner, and kicked off Rai’s with a lovely backhand return down the tramlines, both of those games going with serve.
Pokorny gave away a break point when he hit a backhand into the net to end a great rally, which he saved with an unreturnable serve to Uchida, and Bakshi spared him any blushes with an overhead volley to win the deciding point. Uchida then held to love before it was Bakshi’s turn to go to deuce with an unforced error, but another great serve forced Uchida’s return of the deciding point to finish in the net.
Rai held comfortably before there was yet another deuce game, but this one came about when Bakshi hit a cross-court backhand volley just wide. The ball did appear to land clear of the sideline, but it was at the far end so a bit hard to judge. That didn’t stop Bakshi screaming at the umpire that the ball had caught the line, and he was a very unhappy man when the call wasn’t changed. He made up for it by winning the deciding point with a much better forehand volley, and that left Uchida serving to keep his team in the match.
He, too, ended up at deuce after hitting a cross-court backhand wide, but there was no fairytale ending to the deciding point. The great 11 shot rally which followed ended when Rai could only parry a volley from Pokorny into the net, giving Bakshi and Pokorny the title after an hour and nine minutes on court. The final score was 6-2, 6-4.