Spiker-Jobe outlasts rain and foe to win Oahu doubles
Second-seeded Jared Spiker and Ikaika Jobe overcame an early deficit, a late rain and top-seeded Hendrik Bode and Michael Wojnarowicz last night to win the Oahu Club Men’s Night Doubles championship.
The final score was 6-4, 4-6, 7-6, with the former state high school tennis champions winning the tiebreaker 7-4. Spiker and Jobe were up 5-4 in the decisive third when the rain came.
The final was played before about 100, who pulled up chairs on the grass. It went nearly 2 hours with no decision, then rain blew through Hawaii Kai just before 9:30 p.m. — for the third straight night.
It stopped soon after drenching the court, and 25 minutes later the players were back warming up.
They started again and held serve to 6-all. Spiker and Jobe went up 6-3 in the tiebreaker, with Jobe winning all three of his serves. Bode held off one match point, but Spiker slashed his next serve for a cross-court winner to end it.
"The difference just came down to a few points here and there obviously," Jobe said. "Jared had some great returns at the end. It really helped. We switched (return) sides after the second set and it made a difference."
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RESULTS SEMIFINALS FIRST ROUND |
Bode is a former Hawaii Pacific All-American from Germany. His partner is a former Loyola Marymount player who graduated from Saint Louis but was born in Poland.
Both are now pros, with Bode recently taking over at Hawaii Prince and Wojnarowicz joining Oahu Club in January.
Jobe played the pro tour after graduating from Boise State, but is now in law school at the University of Hawaii. In the fall, the Rainbows’ volunteer assistant will be coaching Spiker, a recent Kalani graduate who won the last two state high school singles championships.
Jobe won the high school title as a Punahou senior. He also captured last month’s U.S. Open local qualifier and last year’s Kailua Racquet Club Men’s Night Doubles title with UH’s Dennis Lajola.
Spiker won the first two points of his first service game, then lost four in a row. Break point came when Wojnarowicz capitalized on a brilliant Bode return.
Wojnarowicz and Bode never got a return in play in Spiker’s next service game. They would get one more break opportunity, against Jobe, and not convert.
Jobe got his team a break point with a backhand down the middle that froze his opponents. Wojnarowicz double-faulted to put Spiker and Jobe up 4-2.
The advantage lasted a matter of minutes, with alternating errors putting Spiker’s serve in danger and another Bode-Wojnarowicz combination breaking it.
Jobe and Spiker broke through their frustration with Wojnarowicz up 40-15 while serving at 4-5.
An unforced error erased his first game point. Wojnarowicz kept three Jobe overheads in play on the next, but lost the point to drop to deuce.
A Spiker return winner earned one break point that Bode buried, but Wojnarowicz’s second double fault of the game gave Spiker and Jobe another chance, and this time they converted to send it to a third set.