Wesley Moodie and d**k Norman impressive in Victory
Wesley Moodie, of South Africa, and d**k Norman, of Belgium rebounded from their opening loss against Daniel Nestor and Nenad Zimonjic, to comfortably defeat Lukasz
Kubot, of Poland and Oliver Marach, of Austria 6-1, 6-3 in just over an hour at the Barclays World ATP Tour Finals in London Wednesday November 24.
This is the first year Moodie and Norman have qualified for the year-end tournament, and have improved their chances of advancing to the semi-finals with their
win today, and improve to a 32-20 record this season which included semi-final runs at both Roland Garros and Wimbledon.
Moodie and Norman recovered from being broken in the opening game, winning the next six straight games to take the first set. Their superior net play served them
well, as they were able to break Kubot and Marach to open the second set, an advantage they retained, winning the second set 6-3.
Moodie and Norman won 82 per cent of their first service points, saving seven of the eight break points they faced, while breaking their opponents five times in the match. Moodie
and Norman were impressive with their return of serve, winning over half of their return points.
Kubot and Marach, who lost their opening match to Mahesh Bhupathi and Max Mirnyi, drop to 0-2, were disappointed with the loss.
"I think I was the worst player on the court, I did not have my best day," said Kubot, sharing his disappointment with ATPWorldTour.com. "Unfortunately it was not
my day. Wesley came up with unbelievable shots and barely missed a return.
This has been a disappointing end to the year for Kubot and Marach, who won two titles while making it to the quater-finals of Roland Garros and the US Open in 2010. The tandem
were the 5th team to qualify for the year-end tournament, despite being plagued with injury in the 2010 season.
In the other Group A match Mahesh Bhupathi and Max Mirnyi were beaten by Daniel Nestor and Nenad Zimonjic later that day. The year-end tournament is the last tournament
both these teams will play together, with Nestor set to pair up with Mirnyi for next year. These two teams played each other twice this year, splitting the results, with Bhupathi and Mirnyi winning their last encounter at the BNP Paribas Masters in Paris.
Both teams won their opening match and but it was Nestor and Zimonjic who proved their favourite status was well-deserved with a two set, 7-6 7-6 win.
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