Henri Kontinen and John Peers will play for their first ATP World Tour Masters 1000 team title after advancing to the Shanghai Rolex Masters final in straight sets on Saturday. The Finnish/Australian duo claimed 81 per cent of their first-serve points and saved four of five break points to dismiss Croatians Marin Cilic and Mate Pavic 6-3, 6-4 in 69 minutes. Kontinen/Peers will play for their fourth title of the season on Sunday in Shanghai. “It was really good for us to put in the performance we did today. It is showing that we can beat the best teams out there when we play well,” Peers said. “Hopefully we can put in another performance like that tomorrow.” The team has gone...
Hello from Shanghai where Jamie Murray and I are into the quarterfinals! It’s a very big tournament, a tournament that I really enjoy, so I want to stay till the end. It’s been an amazing year. It’s the first season me and Jamie are playing together. When we got together at the end of last year, both of us were close to winning Slams before, but we didn’t have one. Of course, once you partner with someone, there’s this belief that you’re going to do well. But to bring that into the court was a completely different thing. We played each other so many times before so we knew how to work with each other’s game and success came really...
Bob Bryan and Mike Bryan broke serve four times to top Jo-Wilfried Tsonga and Nenad Zimonjic 6-4, 7-5 in the quarter-finals of the Shanghai Rolex Masters on Thursday. The No. 2 seeds will next face countrymen John Isner and Jack Sock, who took out Spain’s Feliciano Lopez and Marc Lopez. The Bryans, who have 112 team titles, are two wins away from becoming the first doubles team to reach 1,000 match wins. Bryan/Bryan raced to a 3-0 lead in the opening set before Tsonga/Zimonjic broke back in the seventh game. Serving to stay in the set at 4-5, the French/Serbian duo saved three set points before dropping the winner-takes-all deuce point. In the second set, the Bryans failed to serve...
Rafael Nadal and Pablo Carreno Busta celebrated their first ATP World Tour doubles title together on Sunday at the China Open in Beijing. The Spaniards prevailed against American Jack Sock and Aussie Bernard Tomic 6-7(6), 6-2, 10-8. “We enjoy [playing] together. We played some good matches here, I think, winning against some good players,” Nadal said. “Winning with a good friend, too, is something that is a bit more special. So we're happy for that.” The win improves Nadal to 11-4 in ATP World Tour doubles finals, and for the first time in his career, two of them have come in the same season. Nadal also won the Rio Olympics doubles crown in August with countryman Marc Lopez. [ALSO LIKE]...
For Marcel Granollers and Marcin Matkowski, the Rakuten Japan Open Tennis Championships 2016 titlists, a winning run started with a text message. “I was at home in Spain during the US Open and sent Marcin a text, because I was looking for a partner in Tokyo,” said Granollers, who teamed with the big-hitting Pole to defeat Raven Klaasen and Rajeev Ram 6-2, 7-6(4) on Sunday. “He was still playing in New York and I was already out. I knew he is a great player, and I’m happy he accepted.” The duo found instant chemistry in their first tournament together, upsetting the No. 3 seeds Dominic Inglot and Jean-Julien Rojer in a Match Tie-break before sweeping their final two matches in...