More photos: Kailua Night Doubles
One way or another, three would indeed be the magic number for the winner of Saturday’s Creative Energy/Blue Moon Men’s Night Doubles championship at Kailua Racquet Club.
In the end, Dennis Lajola celebrated his third tournament title, his first with partner Michael Yani, following a 7-6 (6), 6-4 win over Mikael Maatta and Jan Tribler in the final of the 43rd annual event.
Lajola and Yani, the tournament’s top-seeded duo, fought off the two-time defending champions in a roller-coaster tiebreaker in the first set. They opened the second set with a service break and held on to claim $1,500 each in their first tournament together.
"Any time I win this tournament, it means a lot. This is one of my favorite tournaments to play in the year," Lajola said.
"I met (Yani) through being on the tour, but I’d never played with him before. From the first day we were still trying to get to know each other as far as playing style, so as each match went on we clicked more and more."
Lajola teamed with Ikaika Jobe to win at KRC in 2009 and 2010 as a University of Hawaii standout. He spent the next two years on the professional tour, where he met Yani, and returned to capture this year’s championship.
Yani recently moved to Hawaii after calling it a career on the tour and had a couple of practice sessions with Lajola to prepare for the tournament.
"Everyone’s always said Kailua Night Doubles is crazy, the atmosphere is unreal, and it lived up to it," Yani said of his first run through the draw."Most of the professional tournaments I play, not even half as many people show up … so it was a blast playing in front of all these people."
With the win, Lajola and Yani denied Maatta and Tribler in their attempt to become just the third team to win three consecutive Night Doubles championships.
Even so, Maatta and Tribler collected a check even before taking the court. Their point total heading into the match gave them the Hawaii Triple Crown of Tennis title, which comes with $500 and a wild-card berth into the Royal Lahaina Challenger in January. They earned another $850 for their runner-up finish Saturday.
"We knew they were favored, but in the tiebreaker we were (leading) 2-0 and had quite a few chances to get the set," Tribler said. "But they were too strong and we missed too many returns and couldn’t hang in in the long run. But definitely one of our best matches this year. So it was fun."
Lajola and Yani went up a break four games into the opening set and Maatta and Tribler fought back to close to 4-3. The teams stayed on serve from there to force the tiebreaker and Lajola and Yani rallied from down 2-0 to pull it out, claiming the set when Tribler’s backhand volley landed just wide.
They rolled the momentum into the second set with a break of Maatta’s serve. But they had to fend off one more charge from the reigning champs. Leading 4-3 in the set, Lajola fought off a break point before grinding out the pivotal game.
"(Maatta and Tribler) won so many doubles titles together, so they’re going to make you earn it," Lajola said. "Even though they got broken right away they fought through to the last point, and we expected that, and it went our way."
Yani then closed out the match, ripping an ace on championship point.
Prior to the final, three-time champions Wei-Yu Su and Minh Le claimed third place with an 8-6 win over Jobe and Thomas Shubert. Le was also presented the Peter Isaak Sportsmanship Award.
