The much-ballyhooed debut was starting to veer far off course from the way they had planned it. Damien Mudge and Ben Gould, fierce rivals throughout the prior several years before deciding to join up during the summer just past, were rapidly and increasingly sliding into trouble in the first-ever match of their partnership, the opening-round quarterfinal of the 2010 Maryland Club Open, where they were being out-played by a slight but definite margin by Mark Chaloner and Chris Walker, who had taken a 1-0, 7-4 lead, their confidence growing with every passing point. Would the prohibitive top seeds, who between them had won every one of the 34 full-ranking pro doubles tournaments that had been played in the three years since the 2007 edition of this event, actually be bounced from the draw in the very first round? And if so, would they ever be able to recover from this rather noteworthy false start? Two […]

Damien Mudge/Ben Gould: Partners for the past two dominant seasons, this pair of contemporaneous (born just six months apart in 1976) Manhattan-based Australian superstars have gone 19 for 20, compiling a 61-1mark in a collaborative effort which debuted in the 2010 Maryland Club Open. There, after falling behind Mark Chaloner and Chris Walker 1-0, 7-4, they then racked up nine straight games (at the expense of, sequentially, Walker/Chaloner, James Hewitt/Greg Park and John Russell/Preston Quick) to emphatically kick-start an undefeated (38-0) run through the 12-tournament 2010-11 campaign. It was the fourth time that Mudge had won this championship, preceded by his three-year skein with Gary Waite from 2003-05, the inaugural editions of the Maryland Club Open, and the third for Gould, who had teamed with Paul Price to prevail in 2006 and 2008. Mudge’s 114 pro-doubles titles are well more than double the total of any other active player, as are his 11 years (seven […]