The 18 doubles quarterfinals were held Wednesday evening, and the four matchups covered the entire spectrum of tennis excitement. Setting the bar for the least excitement was the 3rd seed James Pade of Woodside CA and Douglas Stewart of Malibu CA pairing against the 7th seeds Derrick Bauer of Marina Del Rey CA and Kean Feeder of Portland OR. Bauer suffered an injury during his singles match and the 3rd seeds advanced in a walkover.

At the other end of the spectrum, John Isner of Greensboro NC and Brett Ross of Roswell GA dueled with 4th seeds Scott Oudsema of Portage MI and Phillip Simmonds of Reston VA until almost sunset. Throughout the match, Simmonds and Oudsema dazzled the evening crowd with their quick reflexes at net. Isner and Ross had their own highlight moments. Isner's serve return kept pressure on his opponents the entire match, and Ross displayed his double's finesse with several well-played lobs and passing shots.

The match was tight from the first game, as Oudsema faced a break point but was able to hold. Neither team surrendered serve again until the 11th game of the set, when both teams traded breaks to force a tiebreak. Oudsema and Simmonds stormed out to an early 5-1 lead in the tiebreak, but Isner and Ross came back and won the tiebreak 9-7. The second set mirrored the first in that both teams held serve until the 11th game, when Ross was broken at love. This time Oudsema held and levelled the match at a set apiece. Isner's serve was broken for the first time in the match in the first game of the third set, but he and Ross broke back in the 4th game. The set stayed on serve until the 10th game, with Isner and Ross leading 5-4 and Oudsema serving to stay in the match. With Oudsema's big first serve misfiring throughout the game, Isner and Ross pumped return after return at his feet to earn double match point. Oudsema saved them both, but Ross and Isner closed out the match by ripping consecutive returns at Oudsema's feet that he was unable to handle.

The other two quarterfinal matchups fell somewhere in the middle of the excitement spectrum. Top seeds Rajeev Ram of Carmel IN and Jonathan Stokke of Durham NC took another step toward defending their title by beating 6th seeds Lester Cook of Sherman Oaks CA and Brett Joelson of Beaverton OR 6-3, 6-4. Second seeds Stephen Amritraj of Calabasas CA and Prakash Amritraj of Encino CA easily handled the 5th seeds Brian Baker of Nashville TN and Chris Kwon of Boca Raton FL 6-2, 6-1.

The 18 doubles semifinals will be held Friday afternoon. For a look at the semifinal pairings, click here.

Source: Matt