Tristan Pearce didn't miss many serves at the Prince George Tennis Open.
In fact, his one and only double-fault of the day didn't happen until he and playing partner Jon Lafontaine were in the midst of a tiebreaker in the second set of the men's doubles final against Matt Altizer and Andrej Vdovenko.
Pearce's wayward launches gave Altizer/Vdovenko a 6-5 lead, with a chance to tie the game. While Pearce chided himself for messing up, on the next point Altizer missed both his serves and their window of opportunity on a comeback started to close. It came down a battle against Pearce's serve to decide the match and he landed a pair of solid rockets to put his opponents off-balance and close out the match, winning 7-5, 7-6 (11-9).
"When you've got your first serve going in doubles, that's huge, and you don't want to give away points by double-faulting," said Lafontaine.
"We had a good [semifinal] match with Chris and John Li that went to three sets and a tiebreaker, and we came out and played these guys. I have to admit, they weren't on top of their game the first set but they were playing good in the second set and we didn't want them to get into a third set when they had momentum.
Pearce, 31, a native of Prince George who now lives in Guelph, Ont., rounded up Lafontaine as a doubles partner on short notice but they formed a formidable tandem. Pearce, with his serves, and Lafontaine, with his no return smashes, recovered from a round-robin loss in straight sets to Altizer/Vdovenko to start the tournament.
Lafontaine, 34, gained a reputation as a soccer striker for his ability to score and he had that same finish at the net Sunday at the Prince George Tennis Club as he claimed his first doubles title.
"Jon is a finisher and when you go to a tiebreaker can go either way, it requires a person to put the ball away at crucial times, and Jon did that," said Pearce.
Altizer and Vdovenko won the city championships doubles title a month ago and were going for the double-crown, but Pearce and Lafontaine had other ideas.
"Both have really good serves, and Tristan only double-faulted once the entire match -- he doesn't make mistakes and overall they both played really well," said Vdovenko, 22.
Said the 40-year-old Altizer: "We had a chance for sure, we thought we would come back and win that [tiebreaker]and take it to a third set but they played too strongly today."
In the men's singles final Saturday morning, Chris Li defeated Vdovenko 6-7 (2-1), 6-4, 6-1.
Nancy Condon and her son Jim Condon won the mixed doubles title, defeating Jan Leong/Rob Prideaux 6-0, 6-2.
