2015 Mass States Doubles Champions Crowned In Climactic Finals Night by Rob Dinerman Dateline May 7th ---
Trailing two games to one after dropping the third game 15-14, the
top-seeded Roberts brothers, Dan and John, determinedly fought their
way to a hard-earned 14-15, 15-12, 14-15, 15-8, 15-10 victory over
second seeds Doug Lifford and Max Montgelas late Monday night in the
final round of the 2015 Massachusetts State Open Doubles championship
at the University Club of Boston. The Roberts brothers, partners on the
SDA pro doubles tour and each a pro at a downtown Boston club
(John at the Harvard Club of Boston, Dan at the Union Boat Club)
thereby successfully defended the title they had won a year ago over
the same final-round opponents, in the process creating some positive
momentum coming into the biennial World Doubles in Chicago, where their
first-round match this evening will be a rematch against Greg Park and
Preston Quick, who eked out a 15-14 fifth-game win when these teams met
the last time that event was held, in New York in 2013.
The Mass State Open final was the second match of the
night --- and an eerily-detailed mirror image of the first --- for John
Roberts, who a few hours earlier with partner (and Harvard Club of
Boston pro-shop colleague) Sharon Bradey had led Graham Bassett and
Fernanda Rocha 2-1 (after similarly winning the first and third games
15-14!) in the Mixed Doubles final before being narrowly overtaken in
the final two games. After dueling with each other on the right wall
for well over an hour in this Mixed Doubles final, Bradey and Rocha
then partnered each other to the Women’s Open title later in the
evening at the straight-game final-round expense of Hope Crosier and
Mary McKee. Rocha thus became the only player of the night to win two
Mass States finals matches.
However, she and Bradey and John Roberts were by no means
the only players who were IN two finals in this culminating night of
the Mass Doubles season, by the end of which no fewer than nine doubles
teams were crowned champions. Amrit Kanwal and his son Deven,
recently-ensconced winners of the U. S. Father & Son 13-and-under
flight, edged out Charlie Humber and Cole Koeppel, 15-13 in the fifth
(on a forehand roll-corner winner by Deven on match-ball) in the B
final, then immediately went back on court to take on Chris Spahr, the
head pro of the host club since 1999, and his daughter Caroline in the
Parent-Child final. By the end of the second game which his team lost
to go down two games to love, those seven consecutive games were taking
a toll on Amrit Kanwal, who was cramping badly, and when they then fell
behind 8-2 in the third, their straight-game fate appeared to be sealed.
Remarkably, the Kanwals rallied to win that game 15-12,
though the Spahrs then closed the match out with a 15-10 fourth game, a
nice complement for Caroline Spahr to the U. S. Father & Son title
that her Dartmouth-bound older brother Carson had won with their father
a few weeks ago. Shortly after the Parent-Child final had ended, Chris
Spahr, his heel still barking from a months-long bout with plantar
fasciitis, had to return to the court to contest the 50’s final
with partner Scott Poirier, in which they fell in four
competitive games to top seeds Greg Zaff and Andrew Slater. The
Siblings title was awarded via walkover to Cole Koeppel and his brother
Jake when their scheduled opponents, JJ and Will Hearty, had to be out
of town on a business trip.
In the 60’s final, Malcolm Davidson and his septuagenarian
partner Tom Poor, who had won a five-game semifinal over John Brazilian
and Len Zide, survived a tight 15-14, 11-15, 15-14, 15-11 final against
top seeds Sandy Tierney (who since mid-February had won the Century
Doubles with Steve Scharff and the U. S. and Canadian 60’s with Sean
McDonough) and Joe Duffey, with Tierney tinning a drop shot at 14-all
in the first game and Duffey missing an overhead on
simultaneous-game-ball in the third. And finally in the C final, Cole
Koeppel and his father Seth won a four-game final over Curt Lefebvre
and Josh Grodin. Of the eight matches played, only one was decided in
straight games, and all but one had at least one 15-14 game. With all
those five-game finals, rallies from two-one down,
simultaneous-game-balls and prolonged points in front of packed and
vocally engaged galleries, the final ball (an expertly-angled forehand
cross-drop off Dan Roberts’s racquet that died in the front-left)
wasn’t struck until shortly after 10 PM, leaving virtually everyone in
a state of happy exhaustion as they exited the building onto Stuart
Street to begin the off-season.
2015 Mass States Finals Summary:
Men’s Open: Dan Roberts/John Roberts d Doug Lifford/Max Montgelas, 14-15, 15-12, 14-15, 15-8, 15-10
