Barclays ATP World Tour Finals; Nenad Zimonjic and Daniel Nester win the doubles title in London
Nenad Zimonjic and Daniel Nester won their second Barclays ATP World Tour Finals title on Sunday with a two setter victory over Max Miryni and Mahesh Bhupathi to end their three-year partnership on a strong note on Sunday. The
final match score was 7-6(6), 6-4.
It the seventh crown of the year for the Serbian- Canadian pair, whose victories include winning titles on clay at the French Open in Roland Garros as well as the ATP World Tour Masters 1000 competition in Monte-Carlo.
Nestor along with his partner Nenad, was seeded number two to win the crown at the season finale in London, also won the year-ending tournament back in 2008 in Shanghai.
Nenad will pair up with Michael Llodra in 2011 where as Nestor will regroup with his partner Max Miryni.
The professional tennis ace from Canada, Nestor, after the match reflected, “We finished great. It has been a great partnership. We won three slams, two Barclays ATP World Tour Finals crowns, a couple of individual Masters 1000
tournaments throughout the years, a lot of competitions. We share a pretty good record in finals, too. It has been the most successful partnership I have had. This is three years of winning a lot with a very solid play. Obviously too bad that we are not continuing.
But at the same time we had a great run."
The second seed tandem did not start the match ideally as Nestor was forced to prevent two break points on his serve during the third game after lob from Max landed inside the baseline. Nenad, however smashed an overhead winner
to bring the score back to a deciding deuce point, and Mahesh netted his return on the next opportunity.
With neither side was able to earn a breakthrough, the set was decided on a tie-break in which the Indian- Belarusian duo of Mahesh and Miryni did well to take a lead of 5-3 as Nenad netted a backhand volley. A forehand volley
long from Nenad on the tenth point provided Mahesh and Miryni two set points in total, however they failed to convert in the end.
Nestor and Zimonjic took complete charge of the match during the seventh game of the decisive set as they broke Mahesh’s serve to fifteen in a game featuring two double faults from the Indian. Nenad then went on to serve out the
battle, clinching a win with an unreturned serve in the end. The clash was stretched to a time period of eighty one minutes.
The winning side served well throughout the match and played smartly on tough points during the match that earned them victory on Sunday.
After the match Zimonjic explained, “I thought today to begin the match, Mahesh was playing really unbelievable with returns and some volleys that he has been hitting. We were lucky to win the first set in the tie-break. After
that, I thought we felt more comfortable and we started making some returns. I was struggling in the first set. Daniel was playing pretty good. He was carrying us. And then after that, I thought we used the chance that we had and closed it out.”
Bhupathi and Mirnyi, on the other hand, were playing at the elite eight team field in London on the third occasion in their career after a strong finish to the year, as they reached the title battle in Valencia and won their only
crown of the season at the BNP Paribas Masters two weeks ago in Bercy.
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