[ALT] Ajeet Rai (NZL) and Alexander Donski (BUL) v [WC] Justin Boulais (CAN) and Duncan Chan (CAN)

It’s pretty rare for a team that gets into a tournament as an alternate entry to make it to a final, and even rarer for them to win, so all overseas eyes were on Ajeet Rai and Alexander Donski when they faced the Canadian wild card pair of Justin Boulais and Duncan Chan in the Challenger final in Québec City.  Rai held comfortably to start, and left-hander Boulais followed suit, but there were a few standout shots in his game that opened the highlights package for the late afternoon match.

Chan hit a beautiful smash from deep in the court, which Donski followed with a fabulous cross-court forehand winner, but he then got aced down the middle before Rai was forced into a return error to finish the game.  Donski held to love before creating a break point against Chan when he hit a beautiful cross-court forehand lob to finish a good short rally.  That was saved when Rai pulled his forehand return just a fraction wide, and the New Zealander was forced into a forehand error to lose the deciding point.

Rai then had another straightforward game before Boulais and Donski both held to love, with the serve on the last point of the latter game being the fastest in the game that I had a chance to note, at 225 km/h.  The sequence of holds came to a shuddering halt when Chan saw three terrific returns of serve burn back past him in the next game, with Donski sending one into each tramline before Rai’s fabulous forehand went down the singles sideline.

Chan then overhit a backhand volley to lose the game, and that left Rai serving for the set.  He forced Chan to find the net on the first and last points, with Boulais’ forehand return of the second point going wide and Chan’s backhand return of the third landing short of the net.  The hold to love completed the set after 27 minutes.

Boulais started the second set badly when a great return of serve from Donski forced him to hit a backhand into the net.  That was followed by a double fault, and a mishit forehand two points later gave Rai and Donski two chances to break.  A smash from Chan saved the first, but Boulais hit a forehand volley over the baseline to lose the game.

Rai opened his game with the shot of the match, a fabulous cross-court forehand lob, but a cross-court forehand winner from Chan gave the Canadians a break point.  Donski smashed away a volley to take them to deuce, and Chan could only put his inside-out forehand return of the deciding point into the net.

Boulais added a beautiful overhead cross-court backhand volley to the highlights when Chan served for the first time, and Chan hit a similarly good shot in his partner’s game.  The only point Rai lost was to a cross-court smash from Boulais, but there were three terrific winners when Chan served for the second time.  Donski started with a fabulous backhand return to the end of the tramlines, with Boulais hitting a beautiful cross-court backhand volley before Donski saved the first game point with a gorgeous inside-out backhand return.

Chan hit one of those as well when Donski served next, and that game went to deuce when the Bulgarian hit a cross-court forehand into the net.  He lost the deciding point when he hit a forehand wide, and Boulais held to love to put the Canadians in front for the first time in the set.

That meant Rai had to hold to keep his team’s chances alive, but they started with three unforced errors into the net to give away four set points.  The first was saved when Boulais was forced to lob a backhand over the baseline, and the second by an unreturnable serve.  A smash from Donski took them to deuce, but Rai lost a great eleven shot rally on the deciding point when he hit a cross-court forehand wide.  The set had taken 39 minutes.

The first two sets had been very close and competitive throughout, but the match tie-break would prove to be anything but.  Chan served first, with Rai getting an immediate mini-break when hit a fabulous inside-out forehand lob that was nearly as good as his earlier shot of the match.  Boulais’ second point went west as well when he hit a forehand volley into the net, and it was then Chan’s turn to hit an unforced error on his serve, losing a good rally by hitting a cross-court backhand volley over the baseline.

They did get one of the breaks back when Rai was forced to hit a forehand wide to lose the fantastic rally of the match after eleven shots, but the margin was restored immediately when Chan dumped a backhand volley into the net to give away six Championship points.  That took them to the second change of ends, and Boulais lost his second serve as well when Donski wrapped up the match after an hour and 22 minutes by hitting a big forehand return down the singles sideline.  The final score was 6-3, 4-6, 10-3.

The title was Rai’s second, and bigger, Challenger trophy, coming four years after the first in Nonthaburi, and it takes his doubles ranking to a career-high 177, a huge improvement on the 221 he achieved last month.  Donski also improves to a new best of 92, up from 96.

Thanks to Tennis NZ for the photo.