It’s taken him more than two and a half hours, but Matt Donald has beaten sixth seed Sidane Pontjodikromo in the singles semi-final in Heraklion, and moves through to his first ITF senior singles final. A second double fault from the Dutch player in the second game was enough for him to lose his serve, but that became the first of four consecutive breaks. They exchanged breaks again in the eighth and nine games as well, but the remaining games went with serve to take them to a tie-break. It was pretty much all over when Pontjodikromo won the first six points and, after Donald won the next, the Dutchman added the point that he needed to finish the set after an hour and six minutes.
The first three games in the second set saw more breaks of serve before Donald secured the first hold, but that was only a blip in the sequence as three more breaks followed. That still left Donald serving for the set and, despite losing his first two set points, he was eventually able to wrap it up after 45 minutes.
The final set again started with three breaks of serve, and Donald was up 40-0 in the next before three double faults in the space of four points put him on the back foot. He had to save another break point as well, but put that game in the bag after the fourth deuce. Pontjodikromo broke back in the sixth game to level up, but Donald immediately broke again, and the remaining games went with serve to let Donald close it out after two hours and 40 minutes. The final score was 6-7 (1), 6-2, 6-4.