GUADALAJARA, Mexico — Theo Brunner had accepted it. While he and Trevor Crabb wouldn’t get a podium finish at the Guadalajara Challenge, “sweet,” Brunner recalled thinking. “We get to rest up for [next week’s Tepic Elite16].”
Crabb was less on the sunny side of matters.
“We blew it,” he remembered thinking as the score of their quarterfinal against Steven Van de Velde and Matthew Immers drifted further and further into a blowout. Down 6-12 to a team known for its side-out efficiency, that, it seemed to any rational person watching — or playing — was that. Merely a matter of time. But amidst their own acceptance that the match was over, a strange shift began to occur. Immers, who at that point had been playing on a superhuman plane, began erring. Van de Velde, whose swings had either avoided the block of Brunner or gone off the 39-year-old’s hands, missed wide.
Still: A 5-2 run only cut the lead to 11-14. An admirable comeback, a respectable score.
Wasn’t going to happen.
Until a Brunner side out and an Immers error whittled it to one.
Maybe they didn’t blow it after all.
Maybe Tepic could wait.
“So you’re saying there’s a chance,” Brunner said, laughing.
More than a chance after a Brunner block to tie it at 14-14. More than a chance after an Immers error long. And a done deal with a Van de Velde error to gift the Americans the biggest comeback of their partnership.
“I’ve had some crazy comebacks in my life but me and Tevor have had some almost crazy comebacks but we’ve never had one,” Brunner said. “It was good to get that one.”
They’d take advantage of the new life, beating Cuba’s Jorge Alayo and Noslen Diaz in the semifinals (18-21, 21-18, 15-13) and Germany’s Sven Winter and Lukas Pfretzschner in a magnificent final which, of course, went three sets, finishing 12-21, 21-19, 15-12. Brunner and Crabb went to three in all five matches played — discounting a second-round forfeit in pool play — this weekend and were perfect in all of them, atoning for an 0-4 start to the year in three-set matches prior to Guadalajara.
“Losing those in Brazil pissed us off a little bit,” Crabb said. “When we can turn that around it shows us a lot.”
The win is a monumental one in the context of the Olympic race. The 800 points picked up by…
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