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Bittersweet would be the word I would choose to sum up the final. We were getting slaughtered by Haarhuis-Stolle (NED/AUS) 6-1, 5-3 and down match point on my serve when things turned around. We held serve and then broke serve for the first time in the match to draw even at 5-5. We went to a breaker and lit it up to win 7-2. The third set was good tennis and we fought from down 0-40 on my serve at 3-4 to hang in there and eventually pushed things to a tiebreaker. We were on serve until 5-5 when I crossed on Ivan's second serve, but Stolle ripped a forehand right at me that I couldn't handle. At match point down, I ripped a forehand return for a winner in what was nearly the hardest shot I've hit in my life and let out a roar. Ivan then hit a great return and ripped an incredible backhand up the line to give us match point. I serve at 7-6 in the breaker and smoked a bomb down the "T", but I'd been hitting a lot of serves there Haarhuis was waiting. He plopped a return at my feet and I hit a half-volley long. Wish I'd had that one back as I would have chosen a different placement on the serve. Hung in and play a good point at 7-7, but Stolle ripped a huge forehand up the line off my first volley to give them their third match point. They got the next point after a good serve and we lost 6-1, 6-7(2), 7-6(7). Tough loss as it would have helped me immensely in the rankings and the pocketbook, but it was a great week nonetheless. At least Haarhuis bought me a ice cream and a beer later that night; so I've got that going for me, which is nice. I'm off to Aachen, Germany tomorrow for another tournament and then will finish the year in either London or Stockholm the following week. Please see what you can do the speed up the Presidential election as I'm taking a beating over here.

~Jack