Asia-America Tour #9

In the first round of the doubles in the Knoxville Challenger Greg and partner, Canadian Pierre Duclos, were drawn to play the seeded pairing of Helivaara and Molchanov but Molchanov had been defaulted out of his singles match and was prohibited from then playing the doubles. The silly fellow had, in a moment of petulance, thrown his racket and it had hit a lineman in the shin and thus was defaulted. Instead Greg and Pierre faced the lucky loser pairing of Moldovan Roman Borvanov and Australian Nima Roshan.

Roman Borvanov

Serving first Greg struggled to hold his serve at the start, saving four breakpoints in getting to 2-2. Games went to 6-5 with serve, with Greg and Pierre unable to convert the single break-point opportunity given to them mid-set. With their opponents serving to stay in the set, Greg & Pierre applied pressure, bringing up 3 set points and converting to win the set 7-5.
Greg and Pierre improved their game in the second set and dominated but were unable to convert their opportunities at first. They continued to return well and broke their opponents to take a decisve lead, running away with the set comfortably 6-3, progressing to the second round with at 7-5, 6-3 win.