Wake Forest Athletics
HOME SWEET HOME: Parr Wins First W-S Open Match
8/23/2011 12:00:00 AM | Men's Tennis
Aug. 23, 2011
WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. - Former Wake Forest tennis standout Cory Parr's first trip back to Winston-Salem in almost two years couldn't have gone much better. After being awarded a wildcard into the doubles draw of the inaugural Winston-Salem Open, Parr teamed with former Virginia star Treat Huey to pick up his first career ATP Tour-level victory, easing past Austrians Julian Knowle and Oliver Marach 7-6 (4), 7-6 (3) in a first round match.
"I couldn't think of a better place to win my first tour-level match," said Parr. "Usually when you go to different places you have some culture shock, but here I felt like I was home here, so it definitely was an advantage to me."
Given the whirlwind that led up to this week's tournament for Parr, it was a major accomplishment for him to be able to hang with veteran doubles players in an ATP match, much less earn a win.
Although Parr and Huey had battled against each other countless times in their days competing head-to-head in the ACC, they had never before teamed up in doubles. Parr had also not played a professional match in a over a year after leaving the circuit to go into coaching junior players and did not find out that he would be receiving a wildcard until last week.
"I had been playing tennis obviously, but not really training to play an ATP-level tournament," said Parr. "After taking a year off from competitive tennis you have to get used to the pace again - they're hitting hard and it's a little bit different - but the instinct is still there and the hands are still there, and once we got a few games under our belt, I started believing."
Parr and Huey will advance to play Scott Lipsky and Colin Fleming in the Round of 16 on Wednesday in the final scheduled match on Stadium Court. There is some familiarity in the matchup as Lipsky was Parr's opponent in his last professional doubles match that he had played prior to the Winston-Salem Open, back in August of 2010. The American has had a breakout season on the doubles circuit in 2011, teaming with Casey Dellacqua to win the French Open Mixed Doubles championship as an unseeded team and also partnering Rajeev Ram at Roland Garros to make his first-career Grand Slam Men's Doubles quarterfinal appearance.
"It's kind of funny because I played (Lipsky) a year ago and lost to him 10-8 in the third-set tiebreaker, so now to play against him here (in an ATP tournament) is something that I never thought would happen," said Parr. "To see him do well this summer winning the French Open mixed doubles you're thinking, `wow, that's the last guy I've played against.' To have the opportunity to play against him again is very cool, plus, he's from Long Island where I'm from so we know each other pretty well.
To get to the Round of 16 matchup with Lipsky and Fleming, Parr and Huey had to dispatch a pair of established doubles players. Marach is the No. 11 doubles player in the world, and Knowle is ranked No. 79.
As is often the case in doubles matches on a fast hard court, it was clear from the outset that the match would be a tight affair. The two teams traded a couple breaks early, but stayed on serve as the first set wound to a close.
Parr was serving to stay in the set at 5-6 when he and Huey dug themselves into an early hole in the game, falling behind 30-40, meaning that Knowle and Marach would have two set points due to professional doubles' no-ad scoring format.
Parr pulled even at deuce with a forehand that forced a volley error and after a long rally on the game's deciding point, Parr and Huey held to force a tiebreak at 6-6.
"You're serving, so you're still ahead in the percentages to win the points," said Parr. "We played our game, didn't give it to them and tried to make them beat us. It was obviously pretty nerve-wracking because they had a pretty good chance on the deuce point to win (that rally), but we pulled it out to get into the breaker."
A double fault by Marach gave Parr and Huey a mini-break in the tiebreak which they would not relinquish. A pretty forehand volley by Parr gave them a set point and Knowle followed with a missed overhead to hand Parr and Huey the opening set.
The second set was similar to the first. After a pair of traded breaks, Parr again found himself trailing in a crucial service game at 5-5, 30-40. The former Deacon reached back and blasted two unreturnable first serves to win the game. Marach held serve to force another tiebreak, where Parr and Huey again found themselves with an early mini-break, Parr brought up match point with knifing volley to Knowle's feet and Knowle's poach attempt on the next point went into the net to give Huey and Parr the victory.
Already playing with nothing to lose, Parr and Huey will look to make further waves tomorrow in front of another home crowd with a spot in the quarterfinals on the line.
"It's been an unbelievable week and amazing to be here so I didn't want to see it end quickly today." said Parr. "With doubles, it's a little bit of a crapshoot. You kind of have to get lucky a little bit, so you play solid, high-percentage tennis and you never know what can happen."
Players Mentioned
