Kiwi tennis on a roll as Watt, Reynolds and Rai all win titles

James Watt and Finn Reynolds have taken out the doubles title at the ATP Challenger tournament in Jinan, China, while Ajeet Rai has triumphed in Perth, Australia.

Watt and Reynolds continued to stake their claim as one of the fastest improving doubles teams in the world, by winning the title against the Indian duo of Rithvik Choudary Bollipalli and Arjun Kadhe 7-5 7-6(1) in the final.

As the scoreline suggests, it was a tough match for the Kiwi duo against the top seeds, but they stepped up at the end of the opening set when the pressure was on, then dominated the second-set tiebreak.

Watt and Reynolds won the Challenger in Tiburon, USA last week and prior to that they reached the final in Las Vegas.

It means that they have won 11 of their last 12 matches together on the Challenger Tour and when the next rankings come out, both players are expected to have cracked the top 100 for the first time in their careers.

Meanwhile, in Western Australia, there was more good news for New Zealand tennis as Rai won the doubles title with Britain’s Finn Bass at the ITF tournament.

In the final, they defeated the all-Japanese pairing of Masamichi Imamura and Naoki Tajima 6-1 7-6(3).