Archives - Sunday, August 13, 2006

A good story after all!

A day after the wind came out of the sails a bit... we picked it back up with happy endings at the dBI Tennis Challenger. We saw a young American win his first professional title, can't complain about that. Then we saw a classic doubles match where Scott Lipsky became the first native New Yorker to win a title.

Final Singles

Scott Oudsema(USA) def Lukas Lacko(SVK) 7-6(5),6-2

Final Doubles

Scott Lipsky(USA)/David Martin(USA) def Colin Fleming(GBR)/Jamie Murray(GBR) 7-5,5-7,10-3

Scott Oudsema became the 1st American champion in 9 years at the dBI Tennis Challenger when he defeated Lukas Lacko. Scott is also the youngest American champion in the 13-year history of the event. This is also his first professional title, so it is good story after another a day after the not-so-good storied Saturday.

Oudsema started out the match, serving at love with 2 aces. Lacko matched him at love the very next game. Oudsema had a total of 4 games served at love with a total of 11 aces. That was the story, as Oudsema was able to apply just a bit more pressure while staying comfortable on his own serve. In the first set tiebreak, it was errors from Lacko that made the difference. Oudsema won the set on a backhand winner up the line, after moving Lacko enough with a couple of hard hit forehands. The 2nd set started similar to the 1st, with both players holding easily. In the first set, the receiving player each earned 1 point in the first 4 games. In the 2nd set, Oudsema was the only receiver to earn a point in the 1st 4 games. But in the 5th game, it was a similar story to the tiebreak, Oudsema had a backhand winner up the line to get the break. Oudsema was able to get another break in the 7th game and then he served it out. He mentioned his Dad drove from Michigan the day before to see it.

In the doubles, it was a little more dramatic. The obvious right away was the big serve of Lipsky. It seemed Fleming and Martin would be the key performances (that is, their service games), and well... that turned out to be true. The first set went on serve until the 12th game, Fleming serving, Martin created the opportunity. At 15-30, Martin was on the receiving end of multiple defensive lobs and finally put an overhead where Fleming couldn't get it back. The following point, Martin returned Fleming's serve for a winner cross court, to take the first set. It was a tight first set.

The 2nd set had 4 breaks in it, with Lipsky the only one avoiding a break on his own serve. Lipsky was tough on his serve the entire match with 3 games served at love. At 3 all in that 2nd set, Martin serving, it seemed like Fleming and Murray got the opportunity they were looking for. Lipsky hit an error for 15-30 and Lipsky looked to be getting a little unsettled. Murray couldn't get a couple of serves back well enough and the opportunity was gone. You thought that might be it. But, Martin serving again in the 11th, and he double faulted on break point this time to give Fleming the set on his serve, and Fleming was able to get it done. The momentum looked to be on the Scottish side, they took the set, they were getting Martin's serves back, and Lipsky looked unsettled.

Fleming and Murray were able to take a 2-0 lead in the final tiebreak, but Lipsky caught fire as he and Martin rattled off 8 straight points to put it out of reach. Murray and Fleming combined for 4 straight errors in that 8 point stretch. Murray put one into the net for the match. David Martin had some great comments for our event after accepting the winner's reward.

That's almost it. We've got more pictures and the recap coming... plus a few quotes. Feel free to send us your comments, stories, quotes... then check back on Tuesday. A quick week it seems, but this was another classic one.