Jamie Mackenzie may already have a junior Grand Slam doubles title under his belt, but it’s still a pretty special feeling when you reach your first senior final. He and Tomasz Berkieta were up against the top seeds, Dominik Reček and Daniel Siniakov, who had the previous day off because they had been given a walkover in their semi-final.
Mackenzie started by holding to love, but the weird thing was seeing in the point by point data that the game ended with an ace. Siniakov would have been pretty surprised by that, given that he got his full racquet on the ball, albeit he was forced to hit his backhand return wide. He did much better with his first volley when his partner served, this one a beautiful soft backhand, and Reček held to love as well after acing Berkieta to win the third point.
The Polish player repaid the favour when he started the next game, but became the first player to lose a point when he hit a backhand into the net. Siniakov became the third player to hold to love, but Mackenzie’s game was rather more complicated.
He served two aces to Reček, but the first had landed wide on the edge of the box, and Reček first started to call the umpire to check the mark before agreeing that it was actually a legitimate serve. In the confusion the umpire then forgot to mark it as an ace, thus cancelling out the one he had awarded by mistake. Mackenzie hit a backhand into the net to give away the first deuce of the afternoon, and he lost the deciding point when his inside-out forehand shot drifted over the baseline.
Berkieta started the next game with a fabulous backhand volley into the left side of the court, but it was the only point Reček lost. Berkieta also lost only one point on serve, but Siniakov held to love for the second time after Reček had hit a beautiful backhand volley through the middle of the court.
Mackenzie held safely before Reček forced Berkieta into a return error to give the Czechs two set points. Reček ended a good short rally by hitting a forehand into the net, and he lost the deciding point as well when a great return of serve from Mackenzie forced him to hit a forehand wide.
Reček started Berkieta’s next game with an inside-out backhand return that landed pretty much on the baseline, and Mackenzie was forced into two errors to take the score to 0-40. Berkieta saved the first break point with a beautiful forehand winner into the left side of the court, and the second by acing Reček down the middle, but Mackenzie lost a good short rally on the third when he was forced to hit a backhand volley into the net.
Siniakov was now serving for the set, but Berkieta put a hold on that by starting with a gorgeous backhand return down the tramlines. A great cross-court forehand return from him forced Siniakov to hit a forehand into the net, and that gave away a break point. A backhand winner into the middle of the court from Siniakov took them to deuce, and a second set point, and Reček wrapped it up after 33 minutes with a backhand volley down the tramlines.
That shot was played towards the camera, and Berkieta went chasing after it. He went out of shot, and the next thing we heard was him crashing into the fence. It must have looked pretty bad, because all the other players, as well as the umpire, rushed across to see if he was all right, and there was a round of applause from the spectators when he got and made his way slowly back to his seat.
They served in the same order in the second set, but it didn’t start well for Mackenzie when a good return from Reček forced him to hit a forehand over the baseline and give away a break point. A good rally between Mackenzie and Siniakov followed, but Reček popped up to hit a cross-court backhand volley and secure an immediate break. That came straight back when Reček hit a cross-court forehand wide to lose his own serve. He had won just one point, forcing Berkieta to hit a forehand return into the net.
Berkieta then got taken to deuce when Siniakov hit a gorgeous inside-out overhead volley to end a great rally, but Mackenzie smashed away a volley to win the deciding point. Siniakov lost his first point to a forehand down the tramlines from Berkieta that clipped the net cord and shot past Reček, and he lost the next three as well to give Mackenzie and Berkieta a second break.
Siniakov’s fantastic smashed volley onto the baseline didn’t stop Mackenzie holding serve, and Reček held to love before Siniakov was in action again, ending a good short rally with another fabulous smash. Again, though, it didn’t stop the game from being held, and Siniakov held in turn, his only blemish being a double fault on the first game point. Mackenzie was now left to serve for the set, but there was no guarantee that it would be an easy task.
He started by forcing Reček to pull his first backhand return wide, but Siniakov and Reček then both hit great returns that forced Mackenzie into forehand errors. Consecutive aces out wide then gave Mackenzie and Berkieta two set points, and they converted the first when Mackenzie forced Reček to hit a forehand volley over the baseline at the end of a great 12 shot rally between Mackenzie and Siniakov. The set had taken 27 minutes.
They swapped mini-breaks in the first stanza of the match tie-break, Berkieta being forced into a backhand error to lose Mackenzie’s first point before popping up at the net to intercept a rally between Siniakov and Mackenzie. It was a few minutes before anyone faltered, that mistake coming from Reček when he double faulted. Just like the first mini-break, though, this one was cancelled out only two points later when Mackenzie hit a cross-court forehand into the net cord and had to watch as it bounced back onto his side.
He was then forced into a return error by Siniakov, and that meant they were all square when they changed over for the second time. The shot of the match came on the next point, Berkieta absolutely nailing an astonishing backhand return down the singles sideline to give his team the advantage, but he lost his own serve on the next point when Reček was able to put away a cross-court forehand volley.
It got even worse for his team when Berkieta then double faulted, because it left Reček needed only to hold both his serves for the top seeds to lift the trophy. A beautiful backhand volley into the tramlines from Siniakov gave the Czechs two Championship points, and Reček’s serve down the middle to Berkieta caught only a small piece of the latter’s racquet before thudding into the fence behind. The final score was 7-5, 3-6, 10-7, and the match had lasted for an hour and 17 minutes.