Son outlasts Race in marathon finals
The men’s open singles finals of the DFS Micronesian Tennis Championship turned out to be as unpredictable as the weather with both players leaving everything on the Pacific Islands Club tennis courts Monday afternoon.
Top seed Jeff Race dominated the early goings of his match against second seed Michael Son breaking him and holding serve for a 2-0 advantage.
The captain of the Pacific Oceania team continued to play well and was able to establish a 4-2 lead. But the tide began to turn in the seventh game.
After Son easily held serve, the South Korean tennis coach would break Race for the first time and tied the count at 4-4 following an exhausting 20-minute game characterized by long baseline rallies.
Son would serve and volley brilliantly in the next game to take a 5-4 advantage. He then took the opening set after executing a crisp forehand crosscourt winner against an off-balanced Race at the net.
Shocked by the sudden change of fortunes in the first set, Race seemed lost at the start of the second and went down 0-4 as his service game went south.
Son, meanwhile, was at the top of his game hitting clean winners and putting mustard on his topspin backhand to force countless unforced errors on his opponent.
Race showed some signs of life in the fourth, climbing back from a couple of breakpoints down only to lose the game after Son swung him from side-to-side on deep groundstrokes.
Facing an embarrassing defeat to the other half of the duo he and his partner beat in last week’s doubles finals, Race reached down to his reserves and fought tooth-and-nail to force a third and deciding set.
He was a point from going down 5-0 before he made his move, forcing deuce and eventually breaking Son on a gorgeous dropshot that caught his opponent totally by surprise.
What happened next was nothing short of dramatic, Race would win the next five games – getting the better of Son on long baseline rallies, furious exchanges on the net, and stop and go action all over the court – to even the game at a set apiece and force a rubber match.
With the clouds that drenched Tanapag and Garapan threatening to blow over to San Antonio and the match closing on to the two-hour mark, both combatants dug into battle for the third set.
Like what he did in the first set, Race got off to a great start, breaking Son and holding serve twice for a 3-1 lead. But Son would return the favor and took the fifth and sixth games to tie it all up, 3-3.
With momentum swinging to Son’s side, Race tried to be more aggressive in the next game and tried to go for too many winners. The result: He went down 15-40 and lost the lead, 4-3, after his forehand volley found the net.
Although, Race would claw back to make it 5-5, the 2003 South Pacific Games campaigner was obviously all tuckered out and after losing a closely contested 11th game, dug himself a 0-40 hole before conceding the match to Son.
The South Korean yelled after winning the last point on a desperation volley after Race’s forehand skipped the top of the net. Race let the point go and in a show of sportsmanship said, “It’s yours” while reaching out across the other side to congratulate and embrace his conqueror.
Son won the three-hour, 15-minute marathon match, 6-4, 4-6, 7-5.
In the women’s 4.0 singles finals earlier in the day, Mayuko Arriola kissed away all her troubles in the semis and masterfully beat a visibly slower Cleofe Santos, 6-1, 6-2.
After her service deserted her in the semis against up-and-coming Kanani Ashraf, Arriola focused on her play from the baseline and it paid dividends. She also pounced on her opponent’s weak return, as she pelted the opposite court with winners aplenty in the lopsided victory.
“I played better today than I did Sunday. I was serving much better. It also helped that Cleofe played a more deliberate game.”
