Doubles tennis can be one of the most exciting forms of the sport because there’s no shortage of action.
The Yellowknife Tennis Club was in that mode last weekend and doubles was the name of the game.
The annual Doubles Tournament was on court from Aug. 19 to 21 and with men’s, women’s and mixed doubles making up the draw for the event. Close to 50 players participated, according to Slavica Jovic, the club’s communications co-ordinator.
The men’s doubles bracket saw the father-son duo of Nittin and Nikhilesh Gohil emerge victorious when all was said and done. They defeated the team of Shamir Siraj and Obed Duru in straight sets (6-0, 6-0) in the final in a match where Nittin Gohil said was all luck of the draw.
“It happens every now and then — you try and do the draw as evenly as you can, but it’s tough to seed players sometimes,” he said.
The toughest match for the Gohils, according to Nittin, was the opening-round affair versus Harmeet Jagpal and Jan Martinek, the club’s head tennis pro. It went all three sets and the Gohils needed a tiebreak in the decider to come out on top and move into round two.
“We saw the draw and we see we’re playing Jan, so right out of the gate, we’re in tough,” said Gohil. “It went a long time, two-and-a-half hours.”
So long, he added, that the match, which started on the Friday evening, had to be called because of darkness and picked up again the following morning.
“The rest of the matches were a bit easier,” he said. “We got the toughest one out of the way first and it was luck of the draw after that.”
Teresa Martin and Ofira Duru reunited from their time at the Canada Summer Games in Ontario earlier this month to play in the women’s doubles draw. They beat the duo of Hiro Kobayashi and Adriana Zibolenova to win that division, while Nikhilesh Gohil teamed up with Tamara Jovic to capture the mixed doubles with a win over Anita Ogaa and Alex Godfrey.
Nittin Gohil, who helped organize the event with Godfrey and Elizabeth Du Plessis, said the turnout showed that tennis hasn’t lost its Covid bump from 2020.
“The interest still seems really good,” he said. “We’ve had great weather all summer and hopefully it will be good for our last tournament.”
That last event is the Fall Tournament, which is scheduled to begin on Sept. 8.