It may be early in the season, but Oliver Marach and Mate Pavic are garnering the headlines for their exceptional start. Now 12 matches unbeaten in 2018, the Austrian-Croatian team is through to the Australian Open semi-finals.
Seventh seeds Marach and Pavic grit their teeth and held their nerves to knock out Marcus Daniell of New Zealand and Great Britain’s Dominic Inglot 6-4, 6-7(10), 7-6(5) in two hours and 40 minutes on Tuesday.
The in-form pair recovered from an 0/5 deficit in the second set tie-break by winning six straight points, but was unable to convert match point opportunities at 6/5, 8/7 and 10/9. With no service breaks in the deciding set, both teams swung freely in the tie-break before Marach and Pavic completed victory after a forehand error. Overall, Daniell and Inglot lost just three of their first-service points (18/21) in comparison to 26/30 for Marach and Pavic.
Prior to arriving in Melbourne, Marach and Pavic began the 2018 ATP World Tour season with back-to-back trophies at the Qatar ExxonMobil Open (d. Murray/Soares) and the ASB Classic (d. Mirnyi/Oswald). They have a 3-3 record in finals as a team.
The team will now challenge the first-time pairing of Japan’s Ben Mclachlan and Jan-Lennard Struff of Germany in the semi-finals.
Later, Juan Sebastian Cabal and Robert Farah ended Sam Groth and Lleyton Hewitt’s title bid 6-4, 7-5 in what proved to be the last match of Groth’s professional career.
The 11th seeds started and ended strong with breaks in the first and final service games of their opponents to book their place in the final four. The Colombian duo hit 23 winners in the 89-minute encounter and will meet six-time former champions Bob Bryan and Mike Bryan for a place in Saturday’s final.