Scottish Open Finals Day: Mind Games Make The Difference For Christine and Mads
By RJ Mitchell
NEWLY crowned Scottish Open Mixed Doubles champions Mads Vestergaard and Christine Busch reckon their victory was built on winning the mind games with their top seeded compatriots Jesper Toft and Clara Graversen.
In an all-Danish final, which was held up for 10-minutes due to a nose bleed suffered by Toft, the No.2 seeded Danes claimed a 21-15, 21-19 victory in 34-minutes that gave them their third victory of the season over their Denmark international team mates.
Reflecting on all of this and just what it means to have won their first Scottish Open title Christine revealed: “Of course we know Jesper and Clara really well so we stuck with what we know works. They knew what we were trying to do and it was a bit of mind games and the key was not to do anything different and stick with what works.
“For sure the delay was hard as it was a long time at the beginning but we kept calm and remembered the key points we needed to stick to.
“But we are so happy with this win and I would say this is the best moment of all for us and we are just really proud to be the Scottish Open champions, it is one we will always remember.”
Not surprisingly given the disastrous timing of Toft’s nose bleed, the top seeds took time to settle and found themselves 4-1 down inside a minute.
With Vestergaard absolutely lethal on anything mid-court and Busch adroitly changing shuttle direction at the net in a deft use of angles, it was the second seeds who took the opener with something to spare.
Indeed with Toft suffering a second nose-bleed there is little doubt that the repeated disruption caused him and his partner some consternation and the runners – up must be accorded some sympathy.
However while the second stanza was a real case of nip and tuck when it mattered most the errors came from the Graversen and Toft combo and it was the latter who botched a return of a flat dive to hand his country folk the title.
Reflecting on the nuances of his pairing’s victory which added the Scottish to the Polish and Nantes titles Vestergaard shared the bottom line: “Really we knew what they wanted to do to us and very often we struggle with Jesper’s serve as he has so many variations but this one was different.
“This time there were not as many rallies as usual but they lasted longer and we won the ones that mattered.”
Indeed they did.