Monique Barry and Elena Micic capped off a wonderful two weeks in northern Tasmania by winning their second ITF W35 title in a row, completing the Burnie-Launceston double by beating Miho Kuramochi and Erika Sema in straight sets. They lost just one set all week, just as they did in Burnie, but the straight sets victory in the final wasn’t quite as easy as the score indicated. Sema lost both her service games in the first set, but they stayed on serve in the second set until Kuramochi got broken in the fifth game when she finished with three unforced errors in a row.
Unforced errors were the bugbear in every remaining game as well, with mistakes on the final point of each game costing all four players a break of serve. Micic needed to hit a beautiful cross-court forehand winner to save a break point in her final service game, bringing up a first match point as she took them to deuce, but she dumped a backhand into the net to lose the deciding point. It didn’t matter in the end, as poor volleys from Sema to lose good rallies on the last two points of Kuramochi’s game cost the Japanese pair the match after an hour and nine minutes. The final score was 6-2, 6-4.
The two titles have rocketed Barry and Micic up the rankings, with the New Zealander provisionally heading inside the top 250 once all the points for both weeks are added into the mix. She’s only defending the points for a first-round loss and quarter-final loss from the equivalent weeks last year. The Australian circuit takes a break next week before everyone heads to Mildura in Victoria for the first of two grass court events, with Swan Hill to follow a week later. Barry and Micic will be playing both, and will be hoping to add more titles before the circuit takes a break until the winter series in Queensland.