Race, Montgomery toast Coca-Cola title

Todd Montgomery and Jeff Race bucked a slow start to beat Faheem Ebrahim and Rory Mackay in three thrilling sets for the men’s open doubles title of the 5th Annual Coca-Cola Tennis Championships Sunday at the Pacific Islands Club.

Ebrahim and Mackay were more than willing to capitalize when Montgomery had his service game desert him completely in the opening set. They went up 5-2 but saw the top-seeded pair of Montgomery and Race break back and hold serve to make it 4-5.

Montgomery then failed to return one of Mackay’s many rockets from the baseline, as the No. 2 seeds and 2005 XTERAA Saipan participants took a 1-0 lead in the set count.

Montgomery and Race had vengeance written all over the second set. With Montgomery finally finding his rhythm from the service line and Race volleying more consistently, the duo forced Ebrahim and Mackay to a number of unforced errors, while converting on a fare share of winners to level the game at a set apiece.

In the third and deciding set, both sides held serve in the first four games for a 2-2 deadlock. But Montgomery and Race made their push in the fifth game when they broke Ebrahim’ serve with the last point coming on a beautiful volley by Race, 3-2.

They followed that up with a dominating service game from Race, which forced action on the embattled second seeds resulting in a handful of miscues, 4-2.

After an exchange of holds of serves from Mackay and Montgomery made it 5-3, the No. 1 seeds had a chance to wrap up the contest when they moved ahead 0-30 against Ebharim’s serve.

Battling a bad back and in obvious pain, Ebrahim reached deep down his reserves and forced deuce with one of his finest serves of the match. They would eventually stave off elimination and narrow the gap at 4-5 on a Mackay smash.

Both sides played like champs in the 10th game with the highlight of the finale coming with score deadlocked at 30-30. That was when all four players traded slices and drop shots at the net with Montgomery and Race eventually winning the point when Mackay’s drop shot fell wide.

At championship point, Race uncharacteristically double faulted which sent the match to another deuce. But the top-seeded pair didn’t let their second chance slip away and a picture-perfect volley by Montgomery finished off the match in a score of 4-6, 6-3, 6-4.

“That was a tough game. We did a lot of running because everybody wanted to keep the ball in play. And we had the point of the match at 30-all there, there were a couple of good gets and couple of tough shots where it looked like either team could win the point and I just sort of gotten lucky and got a slice back. Rory missed a great shot, like one inch and that’s the way tennis is, it’s a game of inches. Just one inch here and there determines the team that wins. And it was a good match, and hopefully we’ll be sharper and have an even better quality game in the next tournament,” said Race after the epic match that was delayed after the second set because of rain.

“I think everybody kind of expected it would go to three. We could play 10 times and we’re going to split five. These guys did XTERRA, they’re tired and fatigued. They also have some health issues. Like what Jeff said I struggled a lot on my first serve and he’s the coach and he said, ‘just keep going at it’ and I finally found confidence and we held. It was fun out there,” said Montgomery.

Despite the loss Ebrahim and Mackay agreed that it was indeed a great game the four-some played.

“It was all pretty good tennis. My back is a little bit tight, it’s hard to move a lot and I really couldn’t serve very well. Just the same, they played very well,” said Ebrahim.

Mackay also admired Montgomery for adjusting his game as the match progressed. “It was fun because we’re playing well and basically have a good time. Try not to worry about the outcome too much and enjoy the tennis and you could probably win more often that way anyways. But I thought Todd really played well in the last couple of sets and served well and returned extremely well. It was tough to deal with that.”

In the mixed doubles open finals that immediately followed the match, Peter Loyola and Cleofe Santos won against Ebrahim and Sally Wong after the Hong Kong native and former University of Miami star couldn’t continue because of the said injury.