It’s pretty tragic that the weather in Jinan has allowed matches to be held on the outdoor courts where the tournament is scheduled to be played on just one day (Tuesday), which must be so frustrating for players, spectators and the organisers alike. The doubles final was delayed by an hour from its original starting time, but the decision had been made early to move it inside, and the following singles semi-finals were played indoors as well.
Finn Reynolds and James Watt were up against the top seeds, Rithvik Choudary Bollipalli and Arjun Kadhe, and the fact that it was the final probably heightened the tensions during the contest. Watt served first, and the first of those tense moments came when he aced Bollipalli out wide to get game points. Bollipalli wasn’t happy, insisting to umpire Du Yong-qiang that the serve had landed long, and multiple replays showed me that he was correct. The umpire didn’t overrule the call, though, and Bollipalli was forced into a forehand error on the final point.
He had better luck when Kadhe served next, winning the final point with a beautiful reflex forehand volley, and Reynolds then held comfortably before hitting a beautiful forehand return down the singles sideline off Bollipalli. Two backhand volleys from the latter went into the net and over the baseline respectively, giving away the first deuce in the match, but Bollipalli aced Reynolds down the middle to win the deciding point.
Watt held to love in a game which had another ace that Bollipalli didn’t like, but this one looked fine when I replayed it. Kadhe lost just one point, but Bollipalli hit a beautiful backhand return down the tramlines off Reynolds before the left-hander was forced to hit a backhand into the net. That took them to deuce, but a great serve saw Kadhe’s forehand return of the deciding point go into the net.
Bollipalli and Watt each lost only one point before Kadhe held to love, and he then hit a beautiful forehand return down the left-hand side of the court to save the first game point when Reynolds served again. The second was converted by the shot of the match, a fabulous forehand drop volley from Watt to end a good short rally, and that left Bollipalli serving to keep his team in the set.
He lost the first two points, but got to 40-30 when he aced Reynolds down the middle. A forehand volley through the middle of the court from the left-hander took the score to deuce, and gave the New Zealanders a set point. Bollipalli’s first serve of the deciding point was down the middle, and was definitely an ace when replayed, but was deemed by the centre line judge to have missed all of the paint. Bollipalli and Kadhe couldn’t believe it, but umpire Du was never going to overrule anything so close. Watt safely returned the second serve, and Bollipalli was forced to hit an inside-out backhand wide to finish the set after 45 minutes.
It was surprising after what had gone on earlier that the Indian pair didn’t complain about Watt’s ace to win the opening game of the second set, because that one clearly did land on the wrong side of the centre line. They served in the same order as in the first set, but the only excitement in the first six games came from the aces and double faults.
It wasn’t until Reynolds was serving for the second time that there was another groundstroke worth adding to the highlights package, this being a beautiful inside-out forehand return into the tramlines by Kadhe. He added a beautiful forehand return down the line off Watt, but the sequence of holds continued until Bollipalli needed to do the same to keep his team in the match.
He started with a double fault, and another one three points later gave the New Zealanders three Championship points. An unreturnable serve to Reynolds saved the first, but he thought he had won the match with a forehand onto the baseline, only for umpire Du to call it long. That took them to deuce, where Watt safely returned the deciding point before Bollipalli hit an overhead volley into the tramlines to take them to a tie-break.
Watt started by forcing Bollipalli to hit a backhand return into the net, and that meant Watt had won every single one of his 21 first serves that landed in play. The same couldn’t be said for Kadhe, who not only missed his first serve but had to watch his partner hit a backhand volley into the net. Worse was to come when they played the fantastic rally of the match on the next point, Kadhe hitting an overhead volley into the net on the 21st shot.
Reynolds gave back one of the mini-breaks when he hit a forehand into the net to lose his first point, and he would have lost his second as well if it weren’t for another bad line call. Bollipalli lobbed his cross-court forehand return to land just inside the sideline and close to the corner, but umpire Du called it out. I hadn’t thought that it was when I saw it live, and the replays showed that it definitely landed in.
It probably didn’t make any difference overall, because Bollipalli, like his partner, lost both his points. He was forced to hit an inside-out backhand volley wide to lose the first before they changed ends, and Kadhe sent a forehand volley over the baseline to lose the second. That gave Reynolds and Watt five more Championship points, and a cross-court backhand from Reynolds ended the match for real, some seven minutes and 15 seconds after he thought his earlier forehand had been successful.
The final score was 7-5, 7-6 (1), and the match lasted for an hour and 35 minutes. It’s the fifth Challenger title together this year for Reynolds and Watt, from eight finals, and their biggest yet, and it moves both of them inside the world’s top 100 for the first time. Their main goal for this season is to qualify for a spot in the Australian Open, for which they’ll probably need another 350 or so ranking points. There are Challenger tournaments every week from now on in Asia and then Australia to help them reach that mark, starting with Shenzhen this coming week, and it seems well within their capabilities.