After a four-year hiatus, Mikael Maatta and Jan Tribler get another shot at Minh Le and Wei Yu Su in today’s final of the 42nd annual Blue Moon Men’s Night Doubles.
Second-seeded Le and Su won Friday’s second semifinal, 6-2, 6-4, over fourth-seeded Bradlee Lum-Tucker and Michael Wojnarowicz at Kailua Racquet Club.
Maatta and Tribler were terrific in the early match, suffocating third-seeded Hendrik Bode and Ikaika Jobe early and outlasting them late in an entertaining 6-2, 7-6 (3) win. They never trailed in the tiebreaker and won the final four points.
"Where they stand on the court," said Bode, "there are no openings. They hit the ball extremely accurate and you never see an opening."
Maatta and Tribler are the defending champions, after losing in five previous finals. Le and Su were responsible in 2006, ’07 and ’08.
They didn’t play last year. Le, who went to Cal before settling on the Japan pro circuit, had a bad knee. Su, the top-ranked junior in Taiwan before coming to Brigham Young-Hawaii, is now married and has a child.
He asked Le to play again two months ago, and lost 30 pounds when Le agreed to come back.
Maatta and Tribler are faster now than they were when they finally broke through last year, thanks to a combined 30-pound weight loss.
They might be quicker than they were when they came from Switzerland and Denmark to play for Hawaii Pacific.
The tone of their match was set on the second point. Bode, the only player on the court not in his 30s, made two incredible gets and Jobe crushed an overhead at Maatta, who flicked it away for a drop-volley winner.
Bode and Jobe won the first two games of the second set, only to watch helplessly as the defending champions got nine straight points in the midst of winning the next three games.
"The first game was the difference in the second set," said Tribler, who hit two untouched winners to get his team a break point in that game. "We played so well in the first set, didn’t make the mistakes. In the first game of the second set we — well he (Maatta) — made a couple mistakes and … we know if they get on a streak they are unbelievable."
Losing that game and the next forced Tribler and Maatta to re-focus and cut the streak short. From there, Bode and Jobe could not match their relentlessness or precision.
Bode is a former Sea Warriors All-American from Germany who is now the HPU coach. Jobe, who won the 1999 and 2001 state high school championships at Punahou, left home to play in college and on the pro tour and then came back to go to law school. He is studying for the bar exam now, between blasting groundstrokes.
They won the second leg of the Mann Mortgage Triple Crown of Tennis men’s doubles series, with Tribler out of town last month. It is the only tournament Maatta and Tribler have lost since the series started last year.
In June, Bode and Jobe lost to the "Scandinavian Ball Machines" in the final of the University of Hawaii Men’s Night Doubles, 6-1, 6-4. That result was vividly remembered Friday.
"We told ourselves don’t get frustrated," Bode said, "but if you are broken that early … if you don’t want something to happen and it does happen, it makes it even worse."
Su and Le know precisely what to expect.
"You just have to be aware they are not going to miss a lot of balls," Le said. "You have to get it past them, attack them when you can because you might just get one opportunity."
The final starts at approximately 7:15 p.m., after a 6 p.m. third-place match.
