Ebden/Harrison overcome Brunstrom/Shamasdin to clinch title – Hall of Fame Championships 2011
Matthew Ebden of Australia and Ryan Harrison of USA battled past Swedish/Canadian pair of Johan Brunstrom and Adil Shamasdin in three sets 4-6, 6-3, 10-5 in the final of the Campbell’s Hall of Fame Tennis Championships in Newport
on Sunday. The Australian/American team took an hour and ten minutes to oust their opponents.
Brunstrom and Shamasdin started the match strongly as they broke Australian/American pair in the third game of the first set to take a 3-1 lead. Ebden and Harrison broke back in the eighth game to level the score at 4-4. The Swedish/Canadian
combination broke again in the ninth game and served out the set at 5-4.
The fourth seeds kept their first serve percentage at 72 percent and delivered a single ace in the opening set. Brunstrom and Shamasdin grabbed an incredible 89 percent of the first service points and 29 percent of the second service
points in the first set.
The Swedish/Canadian combination and Ebden/Harrison held their serve in the first seven games of the second set, taking the score to 4-3 in favour of the latter. The Australian/American team broke their opponents in the eighth
game to win the set 6-3.
Ebden and Harrison delivered 58 percent of the first serves and a couple of aces in the second set. The wild card entrants succeeded in saving all the three break points they faced and capitalised on 50 percent of the break point
opportunities they created on Brunstrom and Shamasdin’s serve in the second set.
The match was forced into a super tie-break. The Australian/American team gained an early lead to win it 10-5.
Both teams had an amazing first serve conversion rate in the match tie-break. However, Ebden and Harrison managed to clinch 100 percent of the first service as well second service points in the match tie-break.
Ebden said, talking to the reporters after the match, “We’re extremely happy we managed to do it here today in Newport. We have to thank the Tournament Director [Mark Stenning] for giving us a wild card or we wouldn’t have gotten
in the event. Hopefully we can take this and move on to bigger and better things.”
Harrison added, “It was extremely exciting. We were talking about it beforehand. We were looking forward to trying to get our first title and putting ourselves in a position where we could play in these events. Looking forward
to the future.”
Ebden and Harrison were teaming up for the first time. Both of them were contesting first title match on the ATP World Tour.
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