Blaz Rola and Nino Serdarusic capped a dream first tournament as a duo with a hugely dramatic final victory Saturday at the Plava Laguna Croatia Open Umag.
The Slovenian-Croatian wild cards saved three championship points in a thrilling Match Tie-break before prevailing 4-6, 7-6(2), 15-13 against top seeds Simone Bolelli and Andrea Vavassori. Rola and Serdadusic had led the Match Tie-break 8/4 but then lost five points in a row to stand on the brink of a heartbreaking defeat. They held their nerve at 8/9, 10/11 and 11/12 to thrice deny their Italian opponents victory, however, before sealing a two-hour, seven-minute win.
"Unbelievable, crazy week," said Rola, who shared that the team received its wild card just before the draw was made. "I never thought that we would end up at the final day, at the ceremony with the trophy in our hands.
"We played really well and what a match today. I think we were a little bit lucky, you could say that."
It was a third Match Tie-break win of the week for Rola and Serdarusic, who also defeated second seeds Sadio Doumbia and Fabien Reboul in straight sets in the semi-finals. Both were competing in their maiden tour-level final, and neither player had competed at a 2023 ATP Tour event prior to this week.
The narrow defeat meant Bolelli missed out on a third Umag title. The 37-year-old, an 11-time tour-level doubles champion, lifted the trophy at the clay-court ATP 250 in both 2011 and 2022 alongside Fabio Fognini.
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