Ikaika Jobe and Dennis Lajola continued their march toward the Creative Energy/Pacifico Men’s Night Doubles record for career titles without stepping on the court on Sunday.

Rain postponed the championship match of the 46th annual event on Saturday at Kailua Racquet Club. Sunday morning’s scheduled make up was also washed out and Jobe and Lajola were declared this year’s champions, claiming their fifth titles overall and fourth as a team

With this year’s win, Jobe and Lajola moved one away from the tournament record shared by Ryan Ideta, who won six times between 1994 and 2000, and Kendall Char. Their fourth championship as partners also is one short of the record held by the team of Char and Peter Isaak, who won the event five times between 1979 and 1984.

“I know we’re close, it definitely feels good to be closing in on it,” Lajola said. “It’s definitely in arm’s reach now so hopefully we can get a couple more while we’re still on the younger side.”

Showers moving through Kailua on Saturday delayed the start of the final between Jobe and Lajola, the tournament’s second seeds, and the eighth-seeded team of Andrea Zannoni and Joel Kusnierz. When play began at 9:54 p.m., Jobe and Lajola promptly broke Zannoni’s serve before a downpour suspended play for the night.

The wet weather continued into Sunday morning and Kusnierz had a flight back to Northern California scheduled in the afternoon, so the title was awarded to Jobe and Lajola by default.

“Not necessarily the way we wanted it, but in a way I still feel like we earned it from our tough matches all the way through the first round, second round and the semifinals,” said Jobe, head coach of Punahou’s boys tennis team.

“We were fortunate to have some tough matches and I think we were building up for the final and we were prepared. Unfortunately we didn’t get to test it out and compete like you want to in those situations.”

Jobe and Lajola survived two three-set battles early in the week and advanced to the final with a 7-6 (5), 6-1 win over two-time champions Mikael Maatta and Jan Axel Tribler in the semifinals on Friday. Prior to Saturday’s rain, Maatta and Tribler claimed third place with an 8-4 win over Henry Gordon and Kawika Lam.

Jobe won his first title in 2004 with Bradley Lum-Tucker and four more with Lajola (2009, ’10, ’14 and ’16). Lajola’s total includes a win with Michael Yani in 2013. Jobe and Lajola fell short in their first attempt at title No. 5 when Hendrik Bode and Nikola Petrov rallied to a three-set win in last year’s final.

Jobe also claimed two of the three titles in the USTA Hawaii Pacific Section’s Triple Crown of Tennis. He had clinched the points title prior to the KRC final having won the Oahu Club Night Doubles title with Jeffrey Fitch in June and reaching the semifinals of the USTA Hawaii Pacific Men’s Night Doubles at Ala Moana in early July and earned a wild card into the Tennis Championships of Maui in January.