Sandblom, Ndiaye take tennis title
By Ann Miller
Advertiser Staff Writer
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| Erik Sandblom, above, teamed with Daouda Ndiaye to win the Kailua Racquet Club Men's Night Doubles title.
Jeff Widener • The Honolulu Advertiser |
Sandblom, a four-time All-American at Hawai'i Pacific University, and Ndiaye, a Brigham Young-Hawai'i senior, beat HPU juniors Stefan Pampulov and Jan Tribler, 7-6 (7-2), 6-0, 6-7 (7-9), 3-6, 6-3, to capture the Kailua Racquet Club Men's Night Doubles championship.
The 3 1/2-hour final was watched by a capacity crowd of about 700. They saw four exceptional, extremely diverse players from four very different parts of the world.
Sandblom is from Sweden, and is the one finalist who could accept prize money; he will graduate in three weeks with masters in both business administration and information sciences.
His partner, whose name is pronounced Da-ooda En-dee-eye, is the only BYUH student from Senegal, where he plays Davis Cup and is ranked No. 1.
Tribler, the Intercollegiate Tennis Association Rookie of the Year in 2000, comes from Denmark. Pampulov, also an All-American, is from Austria, though his father played on the Bulgarian Davis Cup team.
Their roller-coaster final featured the beat of an African drum and a pause for the polite cause, as Ndiaye and the tournament referee both implored a few rude fans — regulars at this long-running tournament — to stop harassing the players.
The rest of the match featured Sandblom and Ndiaye's huge serves and 6-foot-5 frames trying to pound Tribler and Pampulov, who possessed far too much finesse to go into the night quietly.
"Next time, we'll play them in the day," Pampulov joked, "so we can better see their serves."
He never lost a point on his serve in the first set, until the tiebreaker. There, he lost both as Sandblom and Ndiaye went ahead, 5-2. Pampulov, a 1999 finalist with HPU coach Henry Somerville, helped by blasting an overhead into a ballgirl. He apologized to her on the change-over, then lost the next point when Sandblom blasted a ball down the line and Ndiaye nailed the return down the middle for a clean winner.
Sandblom and Ndiaye won the next two points to take the tiebreaker and rode the momentum through a 20-minute second set. They lost just four points in the first five games, winning 25-of-30 in a streak that started in the tiebreaker.
Apparently, Tribler and Pampulov hit all their frustrations away in the second-set debacle. Tribler regained his consistency in the third set, and Pampulov pulled out the big points. In mid-set, after stabbing back an overhead, he chased down a drop shot despite starting his sprint closer to the kitchen than the net.
They won the third-set tiebreaker on their third try, then kept it going through the fourth.
"We started to make a lot of mistakes," Ndiaye said. "I lost the touch at the net. Our level of intensity went down. Before we woke up, two sets all.
"I was a little bit disturbed also by things off the court. That shouldn't happen to me. But as soon as it was two sets all I told my doubles partner, 'Now all we have to do is maintain our serve and look for the break.' ''
That came in the fourth game, against Pampulov.
"Just a few points decided it," Tribler said.
The winners, seeded eighth, have played together one month. Ndiaye, who plans to turn pro after his last BYUH season, wishes it could continue.
"Erik is calm, he has a big serve, and he never gets down," Ndiaye said. "Without him, I would have never been in the final. He has a great serve and he held me up mentally. That's the best combination for me."
SHORT LOBS: Charlie Panui won the annual Peter Isaak Sportsmanship Award. ... Erik Sandblom won $1,200 out of the $6,000 purse. ... The prize money that students could not accept was put into the Mike MacKinnon Fund, which supports Windward Junior Tennis. The tournament raised nearly $5,600 for the fund. ... Daouda Ndiaye is coming off singles victories in the Hawai'i Open Sectionals — where he beat Sandblom in a three-set final — and Wailea Open. Sandblom won the Dillingham Championship in 1996 and '97. ... Jan Tribler and Stefan Pampulov were seeded seventh. They ousted defending champions, and top seeds, Ryan Ideta and Eric Vervloet in the second round. It was Ideta's first loss in this tournament, which he has won six times.
