Brown/Hanley stuns the Italian tandem to capture the title – Grand Prix Hassan II 2012
Germany’s Dustin Brown and Australia’s Paul Hanley surprised everyone after upsetting the fourth seeded Italians, Daniele Bracciali and Fabio Fognini, in straight sets at the Grand Prix Hassan II 2012 on Saturday. They formulated a 7-5, 6-3 victory against their opponents to lift the crown at this ATP (Association of Tennis Professionals) World Tour 250 series event held in Morocco.
The unseeded duo of Brown and Hanley maintained their intensity throughout the tournament to earn the glory. After earning success in one hour and 6 minutes, the German-Australian capped their partnership debut by shelving the crystalware.
“I'm really happy. I've played here for a few years now and I finally managed to win the tournament this year,” Hanley commented after the match. “That's very nice. I got the monkey off my back. The conditions were tough out there and the sun was pretty strong.”
The German-Australian junction assertively entered the Complexe Al Amal and after breaking their rival’s serve three times, they bagged the opener with a 7-5 win. The Brown-Hanley team brushed off one out of three breakpoints they came across and capitalised on three out of four break opportunities to move a step closer towards the limelight.
Ranked 31st in the ATP World Tour Doubles Rankings, Brown and Hanley perfected their game in the proceeding set. They smoothly swiped in their entire serves after blocking the lone breakpoint they faced and cashed in half of the four break opportunities to pull out the set with a 6-3 score line.
Summing up the underdogs performance, Brown and Hanley committed seven double faults and clobbered a lower first serve share of 58 per cent as compared to the Italians' 70 per cent. However, they spectacularly clicked 25 out of 30 points on it and smacked four ferocious aces to dominate.
The winning collaboration of Brown and Hanley shocked the top seeds, Frantisek Cermak and Filip Polasek, in straight sets in the opening round.
“The win against the top seeds Cermak and Polasek in the first round gave us a lot of confidence,” the German was quoted. “It also helped us figure out what we needed to improve. Yesterday we had a very tight match and today it was also very hard.”
The German-Australian duo then went on to outsmart the third seeded Spanish-Brazilian pair, David Marrero and Marcelo Melo, in a three set nail-biter to occupy this final spot.
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