PARC - 2013 Pan American Championships - Gutierrez & Moreno defeat Allen & Rojas

The veteran Mexican team of Polo Gutierrez and Javier Moreno won men's doubles at the 2013 Pan American Championships in Cali, Colombia defeating the young American team of Jansen Allen and Marco Rojas, 15-6, 10-15, 11-8. The gold medal is the second for Gutierrez and Moreno as a team at the Pan Am Championships, as they previously won in 2011. Moreno also won doubles in 2008 with Gilberto Meija.

With the win, Gutierrez becomes the second man to win both singles and doubles at the Pan Am Championships in the same year. American Bill Sell did it first in 1988. Overall, Gutierrez is the fourth man to win gold in both singles and doubles at the Pan Am Championships along with Mike Green (Canada), Ricardo Monroy (Bolivia) and Sell.

In game one, the teams were close with the Mexicans only leading by one at 5-4. But they went on a roll to comfortably take the first game, 15-6.

Game two was similar, as the teams were close early, tied at 3-3 and then 7-6 in the Americans favour. The Americans build on that advantage and went out to a 14-7 lead.

But they had trouble finishing, as the Mexican veterans held them at 14 for six game points, narrowing the lead to 14-10. Indeed, it looked like the Mexicans might come back and win in two games, but eventually Americans did close out the second game, 15-10, to force a tie-breaker.

In the tie-breaker, the teams were again close early, as they were tied at 3-3, and then 7-6 with Mexico holding the advantage.

Gutierrez and Moreno pushed that to 10-6, but the Americans stopped them on the first match point and got two points of their own to make it 10-8. But the Mexicans finished off the match on their next opportunity to win the gold in the breaker, 11-8.

Rojas played the left side with Allen on the right. Rojas used lob serves, often into the middle against the lefty-righty team of Moreno and Gutierrez, while Allen hit off speed z serves to Gutierrez on the right side.

It was an effective strategy that in the end came up just a little bit short.

2013 Pan American Championships
Cali, Colombia

Men's Doubles - Final

Javier Moreno & Polo Gutierrez (Mexico) d. Jansen Allen & Marco Rojas (USA), 15-6, 10-15, 11-8

Follow the bouncing ball....