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Berg/McDonald Hold Off Butcher/Osborne
Exciting Quarterfinal Action
By Rob Dinerman © 2003; all rights of reproduction reserved.
April 26 2003       [Kellner Doubles 2003 Draw/Results]    [Kellner qualifier]

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Their dominant two-game lead and third-game match-point opportunity had become a distant memory and their doughty New York-based underdog opponents Scott Butcher and Jeff Osborne were coming after them in the fifth as well, having trimmed a 6-2 early deficit down to a single point at 8-7, to the increasingly loud approval of the latter's hometown fans.

Third seeds Viktor Berg and Josh McDonald were definitely under the gun, partly of their own doing after an unfocused fourth game and partly due to the mid-match tactical change that had caused Butcher and Osborne to abandon the conservative approach that had served them so poorly early on in favor of a power game that had turned the entire match around.

Berg and McDonald had seen late-match advantages disappear several times in this their first season of collaboration, notably 11-8 in the fifth game of the Boston final against perennial champs Gary Waite and Damien Mudge, as well as the two games to one lead against Todd Binns and Jeff Mulligan in Greenwich in the North American Open that had dissolved into a five-game defeat. That latter loss was the only one they had taken all season prior to the semis, but a repeat in this quarter-final against Butcher and Osborne would not have gone down well, and almost certainly would have dislodged them from their current No. 3 ISDA team ranking. They had been in such complete control of the action during the first two games, which had gone 15-5 and 15-10, that even when their third-game rallies from 4-10 to 12-all and from 12-14 to 14-all had ultimately resulted in the loss of that game 17-16, they still seemed in full
charge of their destiny.

But then they had lost their way in the fourth, distracted by some close calls that went against them and plagued by unforced tins, and the quick four-point cushion in the fifth had nearly been completely erased. Butcher and Osborne, five-game winners already this season (at the Briggs Cup)over Blair Horler and Clive Leach, were whaling away, getting plenty of crowd support from the gallery, and quite possibly poised for the same kind of closing charge that had brought them from 7-all to 15-7 three months ago against Horler and Leach, who won 3-1 this afternoon over James Hewitt and Doug Lifford.

But it was not to be. Indeed, this time the opposite happened, as four swift and consecutive Butcher/Osborne errors (two on balls they hit out of court) gave Berg and McDonald the space they needed to close the match outwith a 7-0 run to the 15-7 tape. Their Aussie opponents simply collapsed down the stretch and their young and talented Canadian rivals sprinted to victory and a slot in Sunday's first semi-final, where they will face three-time defending Kellner Cup champs Waite and Mudge, who overpowered Eric Vlcek and Dean Brown earlier today. Only two of the eight round-of-16 matches and three matches overall of the 11 that have been played thus far in the main draw (pending the outcome of Saturday night's last quarter between Willie Hosey/Michael Pirnak and Preston Quick/Jamie Bentley) have exceeded the three-game minimum.

The semis will be at 11:30 and 1:00 at the Union Club Sunday and the final is set for 7:00 at Racquet & Tennis Monday night.

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