When the final shot landed just beyond the end line, the dual smiles of Jan Axel Tribler and Mikael Maatta related a singular thought:
Finally.
After four previous appearances in the finals of the Blue Moon Men’s Night Doubles tournament, Tribler and Maatta could at last celebrate their first championship Saturday night after completing a 6-4, 6-1 victory over Ikaika Jobe and Thomas Shubert at Kailua Racquet Club.
"Relieving," was how Maatta described the sensation when they clinched the title with their sixth service break of the match.
Tribler and Maatta, the tournament’s top-seeded pair, split the $3,000 first-prize and earned another $500 for winning the inaugural Triple Crown of Men’s Tennis, sweeping all three events.
The series contributed to the new champions spending more time on the court together leading up to this year’s tournament. Tribler said the extra work led to greater consistency on their way to the title.
"Before, we played maybe once every two weeks; now we’ve been hitting a couple times a week, and we’ve played in three tournaments," Tribler said.
"We’ve played well the other years, but it was roller-coaster rides. This time it was steady all the way through. … The first week was getting through it somehow, the second week was OK and now this is the best we’ve played so far."
Jobe entered the finals with three titles and had teamed with Dennis Lajola to win the previous two years. A fourth wasn’t to be in his first run with Shubert, a former standout at Brigham Young, who made his first appearance in the final Saturday.
"It was a lot of fun; we can learn from it and move on," Shubert said.
Known for their returns, Maatta and Tribler fell behind a break early in the first set, trailing 3-1, but got it right back and went up 5-4 with a break of Jobe’s serve. Jobe and Shubert had two chances to even the set, but Maatta managed to hold to push the former Hawaii Pacific University standouts toward the elusive title.
"I think they only missed one (return) the whole match — it seemed like that," Jobe said. "But I expected that; they’re both great players."
Neither duo could hold serve through the first three games of the second set, and after Maatta held to go up 3-1 the end came relatively quickly.
"It came so sudden in the second set," Tribler said, still letting the victory sink in moments after the match and some 10 years after making his debut in the tournament.
After accepting the trophies and oversized checks, Maatta and Tribler punctuated their first title by jumping into the pool.
The finalists had to wait a bit to start their match while the fourth-seeded duo of Bradlee Lum-Tucker and Michael Wojnarovicz outlasted Henrik Bode and Stefan Pampulov 9-8 (9-7) in the third-place match.
