Sandeep Chand and Andre Lopes claime their first major trophy when the 2011 Trophy Stall Doubles Tennis Tournament concluded on Thursday evening at the Pegasus Hotel hard courts.
Chand and Lopes played strongly to defeat the number one seeded duo of Leyland Leacock and Gilbert Barckoy in straight sets to cop the tournament and the championship trophy. The first set saw Chand and Lopes quickly asserting their will upon their opponents with aggressive tennis as they started intensely with a 3-0 lead that they never relinquished as the set finished 6-3.
The second set was vastly different as the number one seeds changed their tactics and established a 3-0 lead.
However, a third set was far from being played at that point in the match as Lopes upped his service game to mount a comeback. The set also saw three saved set points when Chand was serving down 0-40 with the set at 4-5 in favour of Leacock and Barckoy. The match-up eventually went to a tiebreaker that ended 7-4 in favour of Chand and Lopes. Meanwhile last Wednesday evening Leyland Leacock and Aruna Ramrattan prevailed to claim the Mixed Doubles title over Phillip Squires and Krystal Sukra in a super tiebreaker set that ended 11-9.
At the closing ceremony immediately after the finals, tournament coordinator Andre Lopes thanked Trophy Stall owner Ramesh Sunich for his steadfast support to tennis and the Pegasus Hotel for the use of their facilities over the last week.
