Unlike in the women’s tournament, New Zealand’s star male doubles player was free of injury, with Michael Venus and new partner Nikola Mektić being the top seeds in the men’s ASB Classic. There were several other New Zealanders in action, though, before the top seeds took the court, and that started with two playing on the first day of qualifying.
Alex Klintcharov earnt his spot by being runner-up to Isaac Becroft in the Te Anau Invitational tournament a week earlier, and he raced through the first set of his match against Sumit Nagal. The eighth seed quickly regrouped, however, and was far too good in the final two sets as he went on to win 1-6, 6-3, 6-1. Ajeet Rai was up against third seed Facundo Diaz Acosta and, although the first set was reasonably close, the Argentinian coasted clear in the second to win 6-4, 6-2.
Becroft faced qualifier Zizou Bergs in the first round of the main draw, with the Belgian winning 6-3, 7-5 to continue a run which would take him all the way through to the final before losing to Gael Monfils. Although there were no other New Zealanders in the main draw, Auckland-raised Cameron Norrie returned to play in the city that gave him the accent which labels him as a Kiwi. Unfortunately he played what he described later as the worst match of his life when he lost to Diaz Acosta in the first round.
With two New Zealand wild card pairs joining Venus in the doubles, hopes were high that at least one could get to the quarter-finals. That looked well on track as Marcus Daniell and James Watt, playing together for the first time in what was Daniell’s last tournament, tore through the first set against Pablo Carreno Busta and Sergio Martos Gornes in double quick time.
By the worst of luck Daniell injured his left calf muscle late in the second set, and from there on was not much more than a passenger. Most players would have retired, but that sort of ending to his career was not one that Daniell wanted, so he elected to soldier on. His lack of movement was exploited mercilessly by the Spanish pair, who ran right away in the match tie-break to win 1-6, 7-6 (5), [10-2]. It was a sad way to end a career that saw him collect five ATP titles, including his home event in 2010, and an Olympic bronze medal in Tokyo.
The other scratch pair consisted of our top two singles players, Rai and Kiranpal Pannu, but they were overwhelmed in well under an hour by the third seeds, Julian Cash and Lloyd Glasspool. Although they needed to get through match tie-breaks in both the quarter- and semi-finals, Venus and Mektić didn’t really look in that much trouble as they made their way to their expected position in the final.
What came next was a complete anti-climax, Rajeev Ram advising the tournament director just half an hour before the scheduled start that an injury sustained the previous day meant that he would have to withdraw from the final. Winning by a walkover is never a really satisfactory way to complete a tournament final, but Ram’s partner (and Venus’ long-time friend) Christian Harrison sportingly agreed to play an exhibition set alongside Becroft to at least give the full crowd something to watch – and they beat Venus and Mektić in a tie-break.