Cox & Roy Repeat as Boys Doubles Champions at Grass Courts; Paz and Zsilinszka Take Girls Title

©Colette Lewis 2006
Philadelphia PA--

Brad Cox and Rupesh Roy, the defending champions and top seeds, won their second US International Grass Court title on Friday at the Philadelphia Cricket Club, but for the fourth straight match they knew they'd been in a battle. Facing the fourth seeded team of 15-year-olds Brad Klahn and Rhyne Williams in the finals, Cox and Roy, both 17, managed to win a twenty-point first set tiebreak and then found another gear to take the second set 6-2.

"Last year also we won the doubles, so we're thinking like, 'oh we're going to win', taking it easy," said Roy, who is from India. But with their first three matches going three sets, and surviving a third set tiebreak in their first contest, it was anything but easy the second time around.

But Cox and Roy are both very comfortable on grass, and in each match their experience proved the edge they needed.

"He's a serve-and-volleyer, I'm a serve-and-volleyer, so it's good for us to play on grass," said Roy, who has had a sore shoulder and would have preferred quicker wins during the week, and was glad to have gotten through all his singles matches in straight sets, including his semifinal win over Cox Friday morning.

Unilike the relatively quick boys' final, the girls' championship was a prolonged affair eventually won by the third seeded team of Gabriela Paz and Reka Zsilinszka, who defeated Lindsay Burdette and Krista Damico, the second seeds, 6-7 (8), 6-1, 6-4.

Paz and Zsilinszka may have had the advantage in a close match, as they had played nothing but all week, twice coming back after dropping the opening set.

"All of our matches have been 7-5 in the third, 6-4, 6-4, and 6-4," said Zsilinszka, giving the final set scores of the victory run. "After the first set (today), we said 'we have to play better now.'"

Cruising through the second set, Paz and Zsilinszka were able to get a crucial hold of serve when they thought they had already lost the game.

"There was this weird game when I thought we'd lost it; I thought they had won the game," said Zsilinszka. "Then the ref called 30-40, (instead of game for Burdette and Damico) and I guess there had been a call that we'd missed or something. Then we won that game, but we thought it was their game, so that was kind of lucky our way."

Burdette, who had already played three sets of singles prior to the afternoon's doubles match and is just returning to tournament play after taking a break to concentrate on her studies, was understandably wearing down in the warm and humid conditions. Paz and Zsilinszka simply kept getting balls back over the net, and in the end that earned them a title neither expected.