Aussies Ball/Guccione Win Team's First Title In Newport

© Mike BazCarsten Ball and Chris Guccione take the doubles title in Newport.

Australians Carsten Ball and Chris Guccione clinched the Campbell’s Hall of Fame Tennis Championships title in their first appearance in an ATP World Tour final, defeating No. 4 seeds Santiago Gonzalez and Travis Rettenmaier 6-3, 6-4 on Sunday at the grass-court tournament in Newport.

“It feels great,” said Guccione. “Carsten and I have had some really good results before, some Grand Slams, making a couple of third rounds and quarter-finals of the [US] Open last year. We’ve won a couple of Challengers. This is our biggest result in a Tour event, so it feels good to get the win first time in. Hopefully we can keep on going up.”

The left-handed Australian duo capitalised on their two break point chances while saving the two they faced on serve to close out the victory in 56 minutes.

“We’ve played some big matches before; that definitely helped us today,” said Ball. “It’s still the final, so it’s still a lot on the line, but we were just trying to take care of business.”

Ball and Guccione, who had knocked out top seeds Fish and Querrey in the first round, became the first Australian duo to win the Newport title since Jordan Kerr and David Macpherson in 2003.

“It’s our first final, our first win together,” said Ball. “We were feeling pretty confident coming from Wimbledon, making third round, and we played well, better as the week went on, so we’re pretty happy.”

Gonzalez and Rettenmaier were attempting to win their second ATP World Tour title after claiming the Belgrade title this past May in their second ATP World Tour event as a duo.

“It’s been a realy good week for Santi and I,” said Rettenmaier. “We’ve been playing well for the past couple of months, so we actually expect to be in these positions now. We’re getting more and more comfortable here so hopefully we can continue it.

“Moving forward into the American summer, it’s really important for us to keep our momentum going. We’re working real hard, getting better as a team every day, and I hope we can continue to do so.”

Gonzalez added: “It’s very good for us. We’re playing good together. We hope to have good results together in Atlanta, Los Angeles, our next tournaments. We hope to do well there.”