Fil-Am Huey, Briton clinch Basel doubles tennis title

MANILA, Philippines - Fil-Am Treat Conrad Huey and Brit Dominic Inglot recovered from a second-set meltdown and put their act together in the decider as they turned back Austrians Julian Knowle and Oliver Marach, 6-3, 3-6, 10-4, to capture their first doubles title in the Swiss Indoors Basel in Switzerland Sunday night.

The unseeded Huey and Inglot, ranked 25th and 31st in the Association of Tennis Professionals, toughened up in the third, combining for winners while foiling their rivals’ counterattacks to fashion out the win, their first in the year after a pair of runner-up efforts in Dusseldorf, Germany and Winston-Salem, North Carolina and a quarterfinal finish in the US Open.

Huey, the spearhead of the Phl’s Davis Cup squad, also posted a second place finish with former partner Polish Jerzy Janowicz in Shanghai, China early in the year.

The win in the week-long ATP500 event moved Huey two rungs up to No. 23 while Inglot also improved from No. 31 to a career-best No. 29.

On their way to the championship, Huey and Inglot shocked second pick Aisam-Ul-Haq Qureshi of Pakistan and Jean-Julien Roger of the Netherlands, 3-6, 7-6 (4), 10-8, in the first round, outlasted Argentina’s Horacio Zeballos and Uzbekistan’s Denis Istomin, 6-4, 7-6 (5), in the quarters and repulsed Michael Llodra and Nicolas Mahut of France, 7-6 (3), 7-6 (2), in the semis.

The win also put an end to the giant-slaying ways of Marach and Knowle, who eliminated top seed Rohan Bopanna of India and Edouard Roger-Vasselin of France, 6-4, 6-4, in the quarters and No. 3 Mariusz Frystenberg and Marcin Matkowski of Poland, 6-4, 7-6 (4), in the semis.