Paes and Melzer conquer Shanghai doubles final
Embarking on their first run as a doubles team, Leander Paes and Jurgen Melzer have kicked off their partnership on an exceptional note. The Indian-Austrian team managed to score their first victory against Mariusz Fyrstenberg and Marcin Matkowski, both
of whom are from Poland. They were defeated to make way for Paes and Melzer to win the 2010 Shanghai Masters tennis men’s doubles title with a 7-5, 4-6, 10-5 winning score.
Earlier this week, the third seed duo put a stop to brothers Bob and Mike Bryan’s conquering streak of 20 matches at the semi finals of the event. The Bryan brothers are currently the World Number 1 team in men’s doubles tennis.
The team fought their way up from a 4-5 breakdown within the first set, and managed to conquer it by winning the final three games. Their opponents, the sixth-seeded Fyrstenberg and Matkowski team, managed to break in the ninth game of the second set to
make the score level, but they could not carry on the firepower in the tie-break set. The third set commenced with Melzer and Paes opening with a 7-1 lead, and closing the match with a total time of 83 minutes.
For Paes, this is his second title of the season and the 44th of his career. Earlier this year in April, Paes teamed up with Lukas Dlouhy to win the Miami Masters. Meanwhile, Melzer recently defeated World Number 1 Rafael Nadal at the Shanghai
Masters. He has, along with partner Philipp Petzschner, already secured a spot for himself at the Barclays ATP World Tour finals, the showcase event of the ATP year end championships. Leander Paes is also likely to qualify, with his usual partner Dlouhy. Paes
and Dlouhy are currently World Number 3 on the ATP Doubles Team rankings.
Fans who watched the match have been left wanting more of Paes and Melzer’s partnership. There seems to be a great probability that the two players will in fact play again together.
Paes was quoted on the ATP website as saying, “I have tremendous respect for Jurgen. I think that he's one of the most hard working and talented tennis players I've seen over the past 20 years that I've been on the tour. He's beaten two No. 1's in the same
week, Rafael Nadal (in the singles third round), then the Bryan brothers last night. For me it's a big honour to play with Jurgen. Not only is he a Grand Slam champion at Wimbledon this year, but I consider him one of the great talents in tennis and a good
guy.”
Jurgen Melzer also seemed pleased with his performance during this week, saying, “As Leander said, beating two No. 1''s in the same week is great. But finishing it off with a title, it''s my first title in a Masters 1000 event.” In addition to this, Melzer
was also all praise for his new first time doubles partner. The Austrian, who teamed up with Petzschner (currently injured) to win the Wimbledon doubles championship, said, “It was great to team up with someone as experienced as Leander.”
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