My original report taken from www.sports-india.com
It was quite cold and windy in Halle, some sort of New Zealand Davis Cup experience *smile*. Of course, I was quite confident against the Austrian pairing - surely no bad doubles team, but no world class one, too. And it was Hesh's B'day - so how could the God of Doubles Tennis give Hesh a loss today? Apart from me, there was also Chris from indianfootball.com and a friend of him on court. Our guys won the toss and elected to serve. Toddie had no major problems, though they lost two points. Everything looked like a great start, at JM's serve, the score was 0-30, but the Austrians scored four in a row - 1:1. Next to serve: Hesh. Our confidence got lost quite much: 15-40 - but Hesh and Todd came back and deuced the score. Nevertheless, they had to save three more break points - Hesh really struggled with his first serve. But after a long fight, they made it. 2:1 for us - a very important court change break to recover now. Julian Knowle was to serve for the first time - and the score was 15-40 again after some nice points by MBTW. First break point taken, 3:1 lead, everything looked much better now again. Todd struggled a bit with his serve, but though the score was deuce, there were no problems for us to take the 4:1 lead. No problems for Melzer to go for the 4:2 as well as for Hesh to raise the lead to 5:2 afterwards - and though Hesh and Todd could get back to a 40-30 score after a 40-0 lead, Julian Knowle had no major problems to score the 5:3. Todd scored for the set - and made a great job. Straight game, first set 6:3. Second set seemed to start well. At Melzer's serve, our guys lead 0-30, but thogh there was hardly any correct first serve, the Austrians got the deuce. Two break points, both at Ad Returner for us - a definite must have-chance. But at the end, Hesh made two unforced volley errors and gave the Austrians the opportunity to escape. They did - 1:0 JKJM. Todd's serve was no problem again, the only opposite point was committed by a double fault. But the Austrians got in major trouble now. 30-40, Knowle to serve, break point MBTW. The first bp was saved, but another one followed - and this time, our guys said "Yes!". Break, 2:1 lead with Hesh to serve. Nothing speciial about this , no problems to hold the serve. Two straight serve games by Melzer and Toddie afterward, so the score was 4:2 for us whith Knowle to serve. Hesh and Toddie must have decided it now: 0-40, triple break point! But somehow, the Austrians scored three in a row and even saved another break point, before they won the seventh game themselves. Hesh looked a bit nervous now and gave the Austrians a break point at Ad Returner after he committed two double faults in his game. But at the end, he and Todd were just too strong - 5:3. At Melzer to serve, we even had double match point, but again, the Austrians kept their serve. I already took out the birthday cake, but it looked like serious trouble again: double fault Toddie, 0-30. But Todd's serve was just too good today, time for four in a row and the birthday cake for Hesh. I have to admit that Todd and Hesh did not look that good, but at least they did everything they needed to win against nervous-acting Austrians without major problems. Maybe they need some more matches to get used to lawn tennis. Hesh did not look very pleased after the match, too.