Tiago Pereira and Tom Fancutt each held to love when they served first for their respective teams in the doubles final in Loulé, but it wasn’t as straightforward when left-hander Justin Boulais went next. There was a fantastic short rally on the second point, won by Ajeet Rai’s beautiful cross-court backhand volley, and the New Zealander added a lovely inside-out forehand winner to take the next point as well. His great return of the next served forced Boulais to hit a backhand into the net, and the first break points in the match had arrived.
Boulais saved the first with an unreturnable serve to Fancutt before smashing away a volley to end a good rally, but he lost the deciding point when he mishit a forehand high and long. Rai hit a fabulous forehand lob before acing Boulais down the middle of the court, but he, too, ended up at deuce after Pereira smacked an overhead volley into Fancutt. Pereira safely returned the deciding point, but he lost the good rally which followed when he hit a forehand volley into the net.
It was Boulais’ turn to make an entry in the highlights package when he hit a fabulous inside-out overhead volley in the next game, but he gave away the deuce when he lost the best rally in the match by pushing an angled backhand volley wide on what, for him, was the unlucky 13th shot. Pereira still won the deciding point when he forced Rai into a return error, but Fancutt held again to keep the Australasian team in front.
Boulais aced Rai down the middle in the next game to go to 40-15, but Fancutt hit a beautiful forehand return down the tramlines to save the first game point before Rai took them to deuce with a stunning cross-court backhand return. He lost the deciding point, though, when he hit a forehand over the baseline, and then had to save a break point of his own when a great return from Pereira forced him into a backhand error. He did so with an unreturnable serve, but lost the great rally on the deciding point when he hit another forehand over the baseline.
The final rotation of serve saw all four players hold comfortably, and that took them to a tie-break. A smash from Boulais won the opening point, and he hit the shot of the match, a stunning backhand volley right between Rai and Fancutt, to win the fantastic rally on the Australian’s first serve. It got worse for the unseeded pair when Rai lost the next point by hitting a forehand volley over the baseline, but they did get one mini-break back when Boulais lost his second point.
I couldn’t see what happened as the stream froze for a moment, and the replay somehow skipped both the Canadian’s serves. An unreturnable serve from Rai to Boulais took them to the first change of ends, and another to Pereira kept them just one break behind. They should have got back to at least parity when Pereira served, but poor volleys into the net from Fancutt lost both the Portuguese player’s points.
The second of those misses gave the top seeds three set points, but Fancutt saved the first with a smash before acing Pereira down the middle. Boulais still had the last set point to come, and he converted that when he forced Rai to hit his inside-out forehand return of serve wide. The set had taken 53 minutes.
Fancutt held safely to start the second set, but a clear cover was being pushed over the camera before I even realised that the rain had started to fall. There had been interruptions earlier in the day, which was why the match had started more than two hours late, and it turned out that this break would be even longer.
It was just over two hours later when play resumed, with Pereira holding comfortably before Rai gave away a deuce by hitting yet another forehand over the baseline. Pereira lost the deciding point when he was forced to hit a backhand into the net, and it wouldn’t be until the ninth game that either side had a chance to break.
Before then we got to see a beautiful backhand return down the right-hand tramline by Pereira off Fancutt, and a lovely inside-out overhead backhand volley from Boulais to win his partner’s first point. Fancutt crouched down to hit a gorgeous overhead forehand stop volley to start Rai’s next game, with the latter losing a fantastic rally when Boulais served by sending yet another forehand volley long.
When Fancutt sent a forehand long off a lovely return from Boulais he dropped himself back to 15-40. Pereira missed a golden opportunity to break when he pulled a backhand volley wide, ad Fancutt got them to deuce with a fabulous forehand drive volley to end a good rally. Boulais did the hard work on the deciding point to get his return back in play, only to see his partner undo that effort by hitting a backhand into the net.
Pereira was up 40-15 before beautiful returns down the tramlines from Fancutt and Rai took them to another deuce, where Pereira aced Rai wide out to win the deciding point. Rai was vehement in his protest to the umpire that the ball had landed wide, but I only needed to replay it once to confirm my initial impression that it had clearly landed safely in the service box.
Rai was up 40-0 in the next game before forehand errors from Fancutt and himself were followed by a huge cross-court forehand winner from Pereira to take them to deuce. Once again, though, the deciding point went the way of the serving team, Rai winning the good short rally which followed with a beautiful cross-court forehand lob. That hold meant that Boulais now had to do the same to keep his team in the set, and a hold to love meant that they would need a second tie-break.
The first four points went with serve, but the fifth was lost when Fancutt was forced to leave a forehand short of the net. They got that mini-break straight back, though, when Rai ended the next point with a beautiful forehand winner down the left tramline. Boulais lost his second point as well after they changed ends, Fancutt ending another good rally with a big forehand volley down the left side of the court. Fancutt won his serves to create a set point, and Pereira lost the good rally which followed by hitting a forehand into the net. The set had taken 50 minutes.
Fancutt would have been kicking himself for not getting an immediate mini-break when they started the decider, as his forehand return of a soft second serve from Pereira landed just wide. What made it worse was that he lost his own first point when Boulais hit an inside-out backhand that flew off Fancutt’s racquet. The Australian then lost his partner’s first point by hitting a forehand volley into the net, so they were already two mini-breaks down when they changed ends for the first time.
The next group of six points all went with serve, but again there was one that shouldn’t have. Rai had an almost identical second serve to the one that Fancutt missed on the opening point, and he pushed his backhand return wide as well. The double break lead at the second change of ends meant that Boulais and Pereira needed only two more points to win the title.
Fancutt was forced to hit a forehand wide to concede five Championship points but, as so often happens, one was enough, Rai hitting a forehand into the net to complete the match after an hour and 57 minutes. The final score in favour of the top seeds was 7-6 (5), 6-7 (3), 10-4.