It was a David versus Goliath battle and the underdog found a way to cause the boilover of the 2014 Australian Open men’s doubles.
Two fresh faced young Australians in Andrew Whittington and Alex Bolt taking on the Spanish might of Fernando Verdasco and David Marrero – there was only supposed to be one outcome right? Wrong.
Whittington, a 20 year old produced by the Liston Tennis Club, and Bolt, a 21 year old from Murray Bridge in South Australia, did not get the memo. Not only did they survive the running of the bulls, but they took down two of the biggest names in Spanish tennis in straight sets 7-6 6-3 on show court three on Saturday.
Only a glance at each of the individual players bios does justice to how far Whittington and Bolt were fighting out of their weight division.
Our home grown star Whittington has a singles ranking of 368 and still awaits his first title on the pro circuit. All of the successes in his short career have come in the futures events.
Bolt is ranked 471 in the world and is in the same boat with only futures titles to his name.
Marrero, the lesser known of the two Spaniards, has earned over $1m in prizemoney. He carved out a solid singles career, rising to 143 in the world in 2010, but his claim to fame is in the doubles with 10 titles to his name.
Verdasco needs no introduction: a three-time Davis Cup winner, an Australian Open semi finalist and French and US Open quarter finalist in the singles for a career high ranking of seven in 2009. The leftie is still ranked 30th in the world.
In an Australian Open when so many young Australians have announced themselves on the big stage, Whittington and Bolt wanted to join in on the fun and produced one of the upsets of this year’s Open in the process.
All the more impressive is the manner in which Whittington and Bolt brought about the downfall of the third-seeded Spanish.
They survived a first set tiebreak and kept the momentum going in the second set where they twice broke serve to clinch a memorable win.
Whittington and Bolt are daring to dream about further advancement in the tournament.
They want to maintain the rage against two more Spaniards, Guillermo Garcia-Lopez, ranked 58th in the world, and Pablo Carreno Busta, ranked 63rd, in an encounter that will be played on Margaret Court Arena on Sunday.
