With the end of round-robin play at the Nitto ATP Finals approaching, only one spot in the semi-finals at the season finale remained. For Jamie Murray and Bruno Soares, the scenario was simple on Friday evening — win or go home. And despite a spirited comeback by the top seeds, the Scottish-Brazilian pairing booked their spot in the final four with an impressive 6-2, 6-4 victory over Lukasz Kubot and Marcelo Melo. Not only did they clinch a semi-final berth, but Murray and Soares won Group Woodbridge/Woodforde, relegating Kubot and Melo, who will finish at No. 1 in the year-end Emirates ATP Doubles Team Rankings, to second in the group. Kubot and Melo had led the FedEx ATP Head2Head series...
Alternates Oliver Marach and Mate Pavic made the most of their first team appearance at the Nitto ATP Finals on Friday when they defeated four-time former champions Bob Bryan and Mike Bryan in Group Woodbridge/Woodforde. The Bryans, who finished with a 1-2 record, failed to qualify for the semi-finals after Jamie Murray and Bruno Soares beat Lukasz Kubot and Marcelo Melo 6-2, 6-4 during Friday's evening session. Marach and Pavic, who replaced seventh seeds Ivan Dodig and Marcel Granollers for the final day of round-robin play, defeated the four-time former champions and fifth seeds 6-4, 6-4 in 69 minutes. Marach and Pavic came close to taking a 3-0 lead in the first set, but at 30/40 on Mike Bryan’s serve,...
Ryan Harrison and Michael Venus arrived at The O2 with little to no momentum from the end of their regular season, losing five of their final six matches. But that has not mattered this week at the Nitto ATP Finals. Harrison and Venus finished round-robin play with a perfect record on Thursday, defeating third-seeded Jean-Julien Rojer and Horia Tecau 6-3, 7-6(5). "It's been a fun week," Harrison said. "We played a great match the first match and we were just hoping that as the week went on we were able to keep playing in good form and we've been really fortunate to keep playing well." The American-Kiwi pairing has won Group Eltingh-Haarhuis, and will play the second qualifier from Group...
Defending champions Henri Kontinen and John Peers completed Group Eltingh-Haarhuis round-robin play with a 2-1 record on Thursday. Second seeds Kontinen and Peers fought back to beat alternates Raven Klaasen and Rajeev Ram 2-6, 6-1, 10-8 over 59 minutes in a repeat of last year’s title match at The O2 in London. Klaasen and Ram replaced sixth seeds Pierre-Hugues Herbert and Nicolas Mahut after Herbert withdrew on Thursday morning due to lower back pain. There were two breaks of serve in each of the first two sets, before Kontinen and Peers won eight of the first 11 points in the Match tie-break en route to their 40th match win of the season. The Finnish-Australian pair, now 40-17 on the season...
