Ross Hutchins moves into a partnership with the Romanian Horia Tecau this week, and in the first round they have drawn Christopher Kas & Victor Troicki (GER/SRB).
This tournament also sees the welcome return to the court of the former top 10 player Paradorn Srichaphan, who has been given a wild card into the doubles along with fellow Thai Danai Udomchoke.
They broke Kas in the 6th game, and after holding a set point at 5-2*, Hutch serves it out saving two break points as they take the 2nd set 6-3 and send the match into a MTB.
Phew! Things may finally be looking up: they took the second set 6-3 to level the match (thought they were going to blow it at 15-30 in the ninth, but when I looked again, they'd steadied the ship! )
And they've finally turned it round, 4-6 6-3 [10-5]! Well played, boys! 45 points should go some way towards steadying Ross's ship. Wan't it at about this time last year that he & Stephen Huss won in Beijing?
And they've finally turned it round, 4-6 6-3 [10-5]! Well played, boys! 45 points should go some way towards steadying Ross's ship. Wan't it at about this time last year that he & Stephen Huss won in Beijing?
The Beijing title points came off yesterday, but he still has 660 points to defend from reaching the Lyon and Moscow finals in the next month.
And the top seeds, PolParrott (SVK/USA), have followed them, beaten 3-6 7-6(9) [7-10] by The Magician & JWT! They saved a number of MPs in the second set, but clearly couldn't make their opportunity count in the end!