Treat Huey and Denis Kudla of the United States defeated Oscar Otte and Jan-Lennard Struff of Germany in the finals of the $159,360 Arizona Tennis Classic ATP Challenger 125 event, 7-6 (10-8), 3-6, 10-6, held on Sunday, Monday (Manila time) at the Phoenix Country Club in Arizona.
Both finalists were unseeded pairs who booted out the top-ranked tandems in the competition.
Huey and Kudla, who played their third straight three-setter in the finals, took down third seeds Andreas Mies of Germany and Max Purcell of Australia in the quarterfinals. Otte and Struff, meanwhile, surprised in the semifinals the Croatian duo of Nikola Mektic and Mate Pavic, the number one doubles pair in the world.
The final was a closely-fought encounter as Huey and Kudla had to claw back from 3 set points to clinch the opening set. Otte and Struff, however, bounced back strong in the 2nd set and pulled away after breaking service.
Just when the German pair looked to have the momentum in the decider, Huey and Kudla raced to a 5-3 lead in the 3rd set super tiebreak which they never relinquished on their way to the title.
This is Huey’s first doubles title in the international circuit since March of 2020. With this victory, he climbs 20 notches in the ATP world rankings to move up to 133. He was the 18th ranked doubles player in the world in 2016, the same year he made the semifinals of Wimbledon.
