Harris schools Tristan in a three-settter

Bengaluru: The match between the two highest-ranked players in the Bengaluru Open was a dash to the finish line on Friday.  

Great Britain’s Billy Harris, the World No. 110, and Australia’s Tristan Schoolkate, ranked 133, were engaged in a hurried battle dominated by quick points.

As the momentum swung back and forth in rapid pace, lucky loser Harris scuffled to a 6-2, 1-6, 7-5 victory to knock out second-seeded Schoolkate. 

First to be out in the arena on court 1, well before his game that was scheduled on the centre court, Harris went about his shadow practice to prepare the muscles and mind. Bouncing off the energy from the well warmed-up legs, the Brit barely put a foot wrong to race away with the first set in 32 minutes where he broke his opponent’s serve twice (3rd and 5th). 

Taken aback by how fast the opening set got wrapped up, Schoolkate realised the need to regroup. Coming out from his bathroom break, the Aussie was determined to turn the tables in his favour. He managed to do just that when the second set flashed by even faster with the 23-year-old Aussie taking 21 minutes to frustrate Harris and take the game to the decider. 

With the match now even, it came down to a final run between the two that would go on for 54 minutes. Again, with barely any long rallies, each player found gaps to outwit the other to close-out points or sent down aces to make short work of their service games. Harris and Shoolkate broke each other once before the former went for the final blow by breaking the 12th game to win and advance to the semifinal. 

In an earlier contest which bore a contrasting tone, Australia’s James McCabe and Colombia’s Nicolas Mejia went up against each other in a marathon battle lasting 2 hours 22 minutes. 

Trading forehands and backhands with equal power, McCabe and Mejia - ranked 207 and 208 respectively - mirrored each other’s game in lengthy rallies. Synchronising their groundstrokes, like strides of two runners beside each other, the rivals on opposite sides of the court waited for the other to fumble to go a step ahead.

If Mejia took the lead by capturing the first, McCabe hit back by taking the second. With one set apiece, Mejia’s overcautious approach in the third backfired as McCabe capitalised on it by breaking in the sixth to take a 4-2 lead. 

This was after Mejia had received a penalty for time violation in the fourth game where his protest was met with a ‘32 seconds on the clock?’ by chair umpire Sagar Kashyap. Sensing his opponents’ growing rigidity on taking his own time, the 21-year-old Aussie then deployed some free-flowing tennis to enter the semifinal for a second time in the city.  

Results: Singles: Quarterfinal (prefix denotes seedings): 3-Brandon Holt (USA) bt Petr Bar Biryukov (Rus) 6-4, 6-4; Billy Harris (GRB) bt 2-Tristan Schoolkate (Aus) 6-2, 1-6, 7-5; 7-Shintaro Mochizuki (Jpn) bt Hynek Barton (Cze) 7-6 (5), 6-3; James McCabe (Aus) bt Nicolas Mejia (Col) 4-6, 6-4, 6-3.  

Doubles: Semifinals: 2-Blake Bayldon/ Matthew Christopher Romios (Aus) bt Siddhant Banthia/ Parikshit Somani (Ind) 6-3, 7-6 (6); 1-Anirudh Chandrasekar (Ind)/ Ray Ho (Tai) bt Saketh Myneni/ Ramkumar Ramanathan (Ind) 6-4, 2-6, 10-8.