Watch highlights as Nicolas Mahut and Pierre-Hugues Herbert beat Nikola Mektic and Alexander Peya on Thursday to advance to the 2018 Roland Garros doubles final. Video courtesy of Roland Garros. Photo credit: Peter Staples/ATP World Tour
While Pierre-Hugues Herbert and Nicolas Mahut had reached the championship match at the three other Grand Slam tournaments, they had not enjoyed much success together at their home major – until this year. The Frenchmen, who had bowed out in the Round of 16 in 2015-16 and in their 2017 opener, moved within one win of the Roland Garros title with their 6-3, 6-4 semi-final victory over No. 8 seed Nikola Mektic and Alexander Peya on Thursday. Mektic and Peya had claimed the ATP World Tour Masters 1000 title last month at the Mutua Madrid Open, and were attempting to reach their fourth final of the clay-court swing. The sixth seeds now await the winner between No. 2 seeds Oliver...
Fifth-seeded Colombians Juan Sebastian Cabal and Robert Farah booked their places in the Roland Garros third round on Friday with a 6-4, 7-6(4) victory over Argentineans Guido Pella and Diego Schwartzman in one hour and 37 minutes. Last year’s semi-finalists will next challenge Wesley Koolhof and Artem Sitak. Cabal and Farah came into the clay-court Grand Slam championship on the back of winning their first ATP World Tour Masters 1000 crown at Internazionali BNL d’Italia (d. Carreno Busta/Sousa). With a 12-15 record in team finals (9-10 on clay), they have also reached the finals this year at the Australian Open (l. to Marach/Pavic) and the Argentina Open (l. to Molteni/Zeballos). Cabal, 32, reached the 2011 Roland Garros final with Eduardo...
Fourth seeds Jamie Murray and Bruno Soares defeated Dusan Lajovic and Florian Mayer 6-1, 7-5 in the Roland Garros first round on Thursday. The British-Brazilian team now play South Americans Maximo Gonzalez and Nicolas Jarry. Third seeds Henri Kontinen and John Peers needed just 42 minutes to beat Bosnia and Herzegovina’s Mirza Basic and Damir Dzumhur 6-1, 6-2 for a place in the third round. Kontinen and Peers, who have a 10-1 record in tour-level finals, including the 2017 Australian Open (d. Bryan-Bryan) and 2016-17 Nitto ATP Finals, lost just six of their service points. They will next play Italians Daniele Bracciali and Andreas Seppi, who ousted British brothers Ken Skupski and Neal Skupski 3-6, 6-3, 6-2. Wesley Koolhof and...
Nick Kyrgios and Jack Sock booked their places in the Open Parc Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes Lyon final with a 7-5, 6-4 victory over Guillermo Garcia-Lopez and Divij Sharan on Friday. Kyrgios will compete in his first ATP World Tour doubles final, while Sock has a 10-10 record in team title matches. He lost his lone clay final with Vasek Pospisil at the 2016 Internazionali BNL d’Italia (l. to Bryan/Bryan). The Australian-American pair will next face Roman Jebavy and Matwe Middelkoop, who beat Fabrice Martin and Purav Raja 7-5, 6-1 in the semi-finals. Jebavy and Middelkoop teamed up to capture last year’s St. Petersburg Open doubles title (d. Peralta/Zeballos). Jebavy has a perfect 2-0 in tour-level finals, while Middelkoop is 6-3 overall. At...
