Home >  Sports >  Other Sports

Monday, July 09, 2001

By Phil Axelrod, Post-Gazette Sports Writer

After nearly two hours of trading topspin lobs, deft dinks, overheads and sharply angled backhands and forehands, Brian Vahaly and Jaymon Crabbe saved their best point for last.

	Jaymon Crabbe outlasts Brian Vahaly, 6-3, 1-6, 6-4, in the final yesterday. (Annie O'Neill, Post-Gazette)

There was Vahaly, at the net, flicking volleys to either side of the court at the Mt. Lebanon Tennis Center. There was Crabbe, chasing them down, finally passing Vahaly with a lunging forehand.

Game, set and match for Crabbe.

"I chased, got to it and came up with the shot," Crabbe said after he wrapped up the singles title of the $10,000 Futures of Pittsburgh tournament with a 6-3, 1-6, 6-4 victory against Vahaly yesterday.

"I didn't want to play another point. I think you could see that we both were tired."

Crabbe, 23, a native of Perth, Australia, won his second consecutive championship on the Futures circuit that is a proving ground for young players trying to make a living playing tennis. He won at Chico, Calif., two weeks ago.

"They say winning's a habit," said the top-seeded Crabbe. "It helps in tight games because you have the confidence to play the bigger points better."

The $1,300 winner's check will come in handy to pay some bills, but more importantly, Crabbe picked up valuable points that will help him get into more lucrative tournaments. He will play in a $50,000 Challengers event in Montreal this week.

"I'm getting to where I want to be," he said. "I'm out here trying to make a living, but it's hard to do on the Futures because if you're not a winner or runner-up, you don't make money."

Crabbe won yesterday because he regrouped after a disastrous second set.

"I threw it away, then I had to fight to get back into it," said Crabbe, who broke Vahaly's serve to even the third set, 3-3, then broke again in the final game. "I knew he was very steady and wasn't going to give me an inch. I wanted to move him around and stay aggressive.

"Sometimes, I hit it the way I wanted. Sometimes, I didn't. I felt if I was going to win, I had to hit winners, not wait for him to make an error. If I hit them, I win. If I don't, I lose."

Crabbe kept pounding away. Vahaly kept returning. They both raised the level of their play in the third set to produce some acrobatic and artistic points.

"I knew I wasn't going to get many opportunities," said Crabbe, who is just beginning to feel his best after elbow surgery two years ago.

Vahaly, meanwhile, is taking the first steps on what he hopes will become a long journey. This was his fourth professional tournament, coming a couple months after he was a singles finalist in the NCAA Division I tournament as a senior at the University of Virginia.

"This tells me I can compete on this level," he said. "It's hard to tell where college tennis fits in, but it's important for me to establish myself as quickly as I can. I'm hoping to carry a lot of momentum from the NCAAs."

In three previous Futures events, Vahaly finished poorly in Toronto, reached the quarterfinals in Montreal, and won in New York last week.

"These are the beginning tournaments," said the unseeded Vahaly. "I wasn't expected to do well right away, which is why I wasn't seeded. I think I just ran out of gas."

Clay court championships

Lauren Fischer, a graduate of Woodland Hills High School and a sophomore-to-be at UCLA, and Bruins teammate Mariko Fritz-Krocklow won the women's doubles of the West Penn/National Collegiate Clay Court Championships. They beat Jessica Johnson (Sewickley and Marshall) and Alice Sukner (Allderdice and Marshall), 6-2, 7-5.

Daniel Halmovic and Jonathan Stokke won the men's doubles with a 6-4, 6-1 victory against Jason Hazley and Mark Riddell. Stokke and Jeannette Cluskey won the mixed doubles with a 6-4, 7-5 victory against Kristen James and Sean Rinaman.