British duo miss out on doubles glory in Bath
British duo Jamie Delgado and Ken Skupski battled hard but went down 4-6, 4-6 to Austrians Martin Fischer and Philipp Oswald in today’s men’s doubles final at the €42,500 ATP Challenger Tour event at the University of Bath’s Sports Training Village.
The British duo, who fought back from 2-5 down to 4-5 in the opening set, were strong on Skupski’s serve, using Delgado’s speed and accuracy at the net but found Oswald’s service game too hot to handle throughout.
At 3-4 in the second and a break behind, the third-seeded home combination broke Fisher’s serve courtesy of two stinging backhand returns from Delgado to move to 4-4.
Skupski soon found himself serving at 0-40 and did well to pull back to deuce before the fourth-seeded Austrians won the decisive point to go 5-4 ahead when Delgado’s volley in the final exchange went wide. That left Oswald to serve out comfortably for the 6-4, 6-4 win.
Earlier second seed Kiki Bertens of the Netherlands came through a tough three-set battle with Tatjana Malek of Germany to move into tomorrow’s women’s singles final where she will face the winner of the day’s second semi between top-seeded Diana Marcinkevica of Latvia and no.4 seed Annika Beck of Germany.
Malek, with an unusual sliced backhand, looked to have the upper hand In the later stages of the final set but missed a drop shot and floated a back-hand wide to go 5-6 down, allowing the Dutch woman to battle out the final game to secure victory.
Malek returns to the court this afternoon to face top seeded Briton Melanie South and her French partner Julie Coin in the final of the women’s doubles.
Admission is FREE for spectators throughout the AEGON Pro-Series Bath tournaments.
You can also catch the pick of the men’s action on a live webstream. For further details, including the order of play, please go to http://www.teambath.com/sport/tennis/aegon-gb-pro-series/ <http://www.teambath.com/sport/tennis/aegon-gb-pro-series/>
You can also find out more information about the competitions at http://www.lta.org.uk/fans-major-events/AEGON-GB-Pro-Series/Watch-LIVE/ <http://www.lta.org.uk/fans-major-events/AEGON-GB-Pro-Series/Watch-LIVE/>
The tournaments reach their climax at the weekend when the schedule is as follows:
Saturday 24 March
Men’s and women’s singles semi-finals
Men’s and women’s doubles finals
Sunday 25 March
Men’s and women’s singles finals
For further information please contact the Team Bath press office at Matchtight Ltd on 01225 383518 or by email at press@matchtight.co.uk <mailto:press@matchtight.co.uk>
You can also find out more about Team Bath at www.teambath.com <http://www.teambath.com> , follow us on Facebook at www.facebook.com/teambath <http://www.facebook.com/teambath> or on Twitter at https://twitter.com/#!/teambath <https://twitter.com/#!/teambath>
The University of Bath is The Sunday Times University of the Year 2011/12.
