Marray/Nielsen stun Mirnyi/Nestor in the second Group match – ATP World Tour Finals 2012
Jonathan Marray and Frederik Nielsen continued to blossom their young partnership, as they surprised the second seeds, Max Mirnyi and Daniel Nestor, 7-6(3), 4-6, 12-10 in their second round robin match at the Barclays ATP World
Tour Finals. The season ending championship is being held at the indoor hard courts of 02 Arena in London.
Marray and Nielsen kept their record perfect at the season finale and became the first doubles team at the event to qualify for the semi-finals. They are heading the table with a 2-0 win/loss record and second place would be taken
by the winner of the final round robin match between Mirnyi/Nestor and Mahesh Bhupathi/Rohan Bopanna.
In the first set, both teams went in a stable manner till the first half, levelling the score at 3-3. Marray and Nielsen struck in the seventh but the Belarusian-Canadian duo broke back in the 10th to even out the proceedings
at 5-5. The following two games went with serve to take the score to 6-6 and force a tie-breaker. Mirnyi and Nestor took a 2-0 lead at its start but then the British-Danish pair grabbed seven of the next eight points to win 7-6(3).
Mirnyi and Nestor attained lead straightaway in the second set, nailing a break in the first game and holding their following serve to move ahead 2-0. The right and left hand combination maintained their lead till the last point,
sealing it 6-4.
Super tie-breaker went back and forth in the first 20 points, with both teams receiving one match point each. Marray and Nielsen displayed pure fighting spirit at that moment, winning two in a row to capture it 12-10.
Talking to the reporters after the match, Marray said, “I thought we did well to get the break in the first set, then I actually put in a bit of a soft game to lose my serve serving at 5-4. I thought Freddie played well at the
end of the first set to pull us through the tie-break.”
Nielsen added, "In the Match tie-break, I thought we both played really well actually. I served a lot better than I had been the whole match. Freddie, I thought, played pretty well throughout. Obviously it was pretty tense there
at the end and we came out with some big first serves when we needed it."
Marray and Nielsen will play Robert Lindstedt and Horia Tecau in the last match.
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