Michael Yani proved you can never count him out of a point even when he’s down.
Yani and Hendrik Bode, the No. 3 seeds, beat No. 4 seeds Mikael Maatta and Jan Axel Tribler 6-3, 3-6, 7-6 (3) in the final of the Honolulu HomeLoans/Pacifico Men’s Night Doubles on Saturday at the Kailua Racquet Club.
Yani came up with the point of the tournament during the tiebreaker when he slipped, quickly rose to his knees, crawled forward and hit a perfect lob just inside the back line for a 5-2 lead. The matched ended three points later when Bode hit a winner off Maatta.
“What happened was he hit a short volley and I wasn’t expecting it to be that short, so as I started to run up to get it I kind of slipped and then I just said, ‘Whatever, I’ll just dive for it,’ ” said Yani, who never lost hold of his racquet during the play. “I couldn’t get to it otherwise. I had no expectations for that to go in.”
All four players displayed power, finesse and quick reflexes in a match that last about 2 hours, 20 minutes.
“It definitely was an extremely exciting final for it to go to a final-set tiebreaker in the final of the tournament. We just had a blast,” Bode said.
Everyone held serve through the first 12 games of the third set. Maatta and Tribler had double break points against Yani’s serve in the fifth and ninth games, but couldn’t convert on either opportunity.
“I was a little frustrated we were down and I said to Hendrik, ‘I just going to throw in the heaters here,’ and I hit two of the hardest serves I’ve hit in probably the last 10 years,” said Yani, who had two aces in the fifth.
Yani added he and Bode “just scrapped our way through the ninth game.”
It was the first time Bode and Yani partnered together in the tournament.
Bode and Yani beat No. 1 seeds and four-time champions Ikaika Jobe and Dennis Lajola in three sets in the semifinals. In 2013, Yani partnered with Lajola to win the Night Doubles title. Bode won with Nikola Petrov in 2015.
Despite being a coach now, Bode proved he’s still got game.
“If you want to coach well you have to compete at something,” he said. “There are certain things you have to know as a coach and keeping yourself active and competitive helps you a lot (in coaching),” he said.
Maatta and Tribler were All-Americans at Hawaii Pacific. Maatta and Tribler have appeared in 11 Night Doubles finals together, but only have two victories.
“Well, first off I want to say congratulations to Yani and Bode,” Maatta said. “You guys are serious players. Hat’s off to you guys. You deserve to win.”
The pair has spent a lot of time playing squash together. It’s an indoor game that is similar to racquetball.
“We didn’t have any expectations coming into this year. We weren’t in the best of shape, but we played our way into shape during the tournament,” Tribler said.
The first set was tied 3-3 before Bode held serve, Maatta had his serve broken and Yani served out the set.
Maatta and Tribler broke Yani’s serve in the sixth game of the second set for a 4-2 advantage. Maatta, Bode and Tribler all held serve the rest of the way.
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