Gutsy Grills triumphs after epic all-day final
Rain delays force Victorian to play for nearly eight hours to beat Klein
VICTORIAN Jacob Grills is not going to forget his trip to Cairns in September of 2018 anytime soon.
The smiling Grills was crowned the 2018 Cairns Tennis International champion last night after the longest match the Far North tournament has ever seen, with rain stopping and starting play all day, spanning over almost eight painstaking hours.
In a match that started at 11am in the morning, the 23year-old did not win his final point until 6.21pm in the evening to beat third-seed Brydan Klein in three tough sets.
Every time Klein or Grills started to build some momentum and the crowd would get into the game, the heavens would open up and play would quickly stop.
The right-hander was clinical in the first set before the former Australian and now Great Britain-aligned Klein fought back in the second set, winning a tie-break to send the match the distance.
The seventh-seed Grills returned to his early form in the third set, skipping out to a 5-2 lead, before the longest delay of the day occurred late in the afternoon as much of the onhand crowd departed.
When the centre court was eventually dried as the sun was setting, it took just five games for Grills to wrap up the 2018 crown of Far North tennis, 7-5 in the clinching set.
Grills, who is coached by Wayne Arthurs, had previously won two events worth $15,000 each, with yesterday’s $25,000 payday his career best victory so far.
The rain seems to be a positive for the Ocean Grove product, with another of his tournament victories coming through driving rain.
“I have not been involved in a game like this before,” he said. “The last time I was in a final in Hong Kong, it rained all day, but we continued the game indoors and that made it a little different.”
During the rain interruptions, the finalists were forced into a small players’ room together to wait it out and the eventual champion said the stop-start nature of the final was tougher than the actual contest itself.
“I just tried to focus on the tennis today because it really is very mentally draining to hang around and keep having breaks only to come back again,” Grills said. “Momentum changes happen a lot when you have rain delays.
“I was pleased to get over the line in the end.”
After battling injury the last two years, Grills is now focused on getting his ranking back to where it was in 2015, when he ranked among the best 500 in the world.
Astra Sharma and Destanee Aiava started their match for the Cairns International women’s title just after 7pm last night.