Ben Lock and Federico Zeballos served first for their respective teams when they played their first round doubles match at the ATP Challenger in Brasilia this morning. They each held serve comfortably, as did Rubin Statham next up. The first memorable shot came in that third game, with a beautiful backhand return down the singles sideline from Zeballos, but the first time Boris Arias served was more notable for the string of unforced errors that concluded the game.
Lock started the next game with three unforced errors into the net and, although they saved the first break point when Arias was forced into an error, the latter’s beautiful forehand winner down the right side of the court completed the break. He hammered home the advantage with four winning volleys to allow his partner to hold to love before Statham made sure that the deficit would remain at just one when he finished his next game with a fabulous backhand winner down the tramlines.
Arias copied Zeballos by holding to love, but the last point, and the whole of the next game, were hidden by camera setting captions which suddenly covered the most vital parts of the screen. Lock was taken to deuce in that latter game, giving the fourth seeds a set point, but he won the deciding point. The screen cleared in time to see Zeballos serving for the set, and a backhand return into the net from Statham gave the Bolivian pair another set point. A great rally ended with Zeballos hitting a forehand over the baseline, but that was also the final resting place of Statham’s backhand return of the next serve. The set had taken 32 minutes.
Statham started the second set by acing Zeballos down the middle, and held to love when his last serve just clipped Arias’ racquet on the way through to the back wall of the court. Lock hit a fabulous inside-out backhand return off Zeballos in the next game, with Statham taking them to deuce when he hit a beautiful forehand return down the tramlines. Lock took the deciding point, but his return only went as far as Arias, who smashed away the winning volley.
Zeballos started the next game with a beautiful forehand winner down the singles sideline, but it was the only point Lock lost. Arias hit two aces on the way to holding serve next up, and Statham finished a hold to love by acing Arias down the middle off a second serve. The next game started with the best rally of the match, which ended when Arias was forced to hit a forehand volley over the baseline on the 13th shot. A nice forehand volley from Lock meant that Zeballos was facing break points, but a nice forehand volley from Arias and two unreturnable serves to Statham meant that he again got out of jail.
It was then Lock’s turn to end a game with an ace before being rightly aggrieved when he lost the last point of the next game from Arias with an overhit backhand return when the serve had clearly landed long. To be fair, though, that was the only call in the whole match that looked at all dodgy, which is a nice change from some of the matches I’ve seen recently. Statham started the next game with a beautiful backhand volley, but that was followed by a fabulous cross-court forehand winner from Zeballos. Statham went on to hold serve, but then it was his turn to be on the receiving end of a second serve ace when Zeballos hammered one down the middle.
Arias started Lock’s next game with a beautiful cross-court backhand volley, and got them to deuce with a big forehand that flew off Statham’s racquet. Zeballos took the deciding point, but his cross-court forehand return of the serve clipped the net cord and deflected wide. To be fair, though, it did look like it was going out anyway. That left Arias serving to force a tie-break, but everything went wrong for the seeded pair. A forced error from Zeballos was followed by a double fault, and a fabulous forehand return down the tramlines from Lock gave his team four set points. One was enough, with Arias forced to hit a cross-court backhand volley out of court, and the set was over after 42 minutes.
Statham aced Zeballos out wide to start the match tie-break before hitting a fabulous inside-out forehand return into the corner off the same player. Zeballos should have lost his second point as well, to a forehand winner down the tramlines from Lock, but he didn’t give his shot quite enough air and it deflected out of court off the net cord. A great short rally on the next point ended with Zeballos hitting a forehand into the net, and he then got aced again, this time down the middle. Arias won both his points off poor returns of serve, and was then forced into a return error before Statham aced Zeballos yet again. Zeballos won both his points before the mini-break was finally cancelled out when Statham was forced to hit a backhand volley into the net.
That took them to the second change of ends, with Lock winning his second point and Arias winning both of his. He was lucky to win the second when Statham overhit a forehand with plenty of room to land it in court, and that mistake was compounded when Lock was forced to hit a backhand volley over the baseline to lose Statham’s first serve, giving Arias and Zeballos two match points. Zeballos’ return of the next serve went into the net, but he completed the victory when he aced Statham down the middle. The final score was 6-4, 5-7, 10-8, and the match took an hour and 30 minutes.