2010 Barclays ATP World Tour Finals: Doubles Preview
Joining the legends in the O2 Arena are also eight elite teams competing for the coveted doubles crown. Also set in round robin format, Group A teams will kick off the doubles tournament battling it out against each other to get
ahead.
First up is the decorated American pair of Bob and Mike Bryan against the rising team of Austrian Jurgen Melzer and German Philipp Petzschner.
Top seeded Bryans enter the event with eleven titles including two Grand Slams that are the Australian Open and the US Open. They also have four Masters 1000 titles to their name at Cincinnati, Madrid, Rome and Toronto. The twins
enjoy an impressive mark of 65-11 for the season.
On August 30th Bryans’ qualification for the season finale was announced for the sixth time. They come to defend their title having reclaimed it last year after a four-year long break from 2005-2008. They defeated the
team of Max Mirnyi and Andy Ram last year in London to win the championship.
Meeting the legendary Bryans will be the Austrian German duo of Melzer and Petzschner. They come into the event with two title wins, one of which is the Wimbledon cup. The pair won their first ever Grand Slam event this year at
Wimbledon defeating the Swede Robert Lindstedt and Romanian Horia Tecau. Having won Wimbledon, the pair were almost guaranteed a qualification for the London finals; it was confirmed later when the Indo-Pak express, Aisam-ul-Haq Qureshi and Rohan Bopanna,
failed to grab the title at the United States Open.
This will be the teams’ second meeting on the court. They met once before earlier in the year in the Australian Open. The Bryans won the match to lead the score 1-0 between them. Will the Austrian German duo level the score or
will the Bryans just add this to a long line of wins they enjoys over their opponents?
Following these two teams will be the remaining pairs of Group A. Third seeds Czech Lukas Dlouhy and Indian Leander Paes will meet sixth seeded Polish team of Mariusz Fyrstenberg and Marcin Matkowski.
This is the Czech/Indian duo’s third year in the running to qualify for the season finale. They, however, always fell short and never made it to the semis in the previous two instances. They have appeared in sixteen events together
this year with only one title win at the Miami Masters. They were the finalists at four other events including the Roland Garros. Standing at fourth position in the year-to-date, the pair were fifth to qualify for the season finale.
Facing these two will be well co-ordinated Polish team of Fyrstenberg and Matkowski. The two professionals have been doubles partners since 2003 with twenty nine final appearances and eleven titles to show for it. The pair managed
a win at Eastbourne this year. With the exception of 2007, this is the pair’s fourth qualification for the tour finals. The pair made only one semi-final appearance in 2008 apart from which they have never made it past the round robin.
The two teams will be meeting for the fourth time on the courts with their head-to-head score levelled at 2-2. With no superb performances this season, the match can go in the favour of either team.
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