Rojer/Tecau Eyeing Year-End Top Spot
They won their first Grand Slam title at Wimbledon and now Jean-Julien Rojer and Horia Tecau are looking to crown their career-best season by finishing the year as the World No. 1 pairing in the Emirates ATP Doubles Team Rankings.
Rojer and Tecau start the week just 245 points behind Bob and Mike Bryan, who aren’t playing at the moment while Bob is at home awaiting the birth of his third child with wife, Michelle. The Dutch-Romanian duo are the top seeds at the Swiss Indoors Basel, where 500 ranking points are awarded to the winning team.
“Because we had such a great Grand Slam year, we put ourselves in a situation to be close to No. 1,” said Tecau. “Now that we won our first Grand Slam, we’re looking for the next goal and the next motivation. This is a big one.
“We’re in this position because we managed to win Wimbledon. We’re looking forward to the next few weeks. We have three more events this year and there are a lot of points in play; we have a shot.”
It would be quite the feat by Rojer and Tecau. Since 2003, only two teams have interrupted the Bryans’ reign atop the team rankings – Mark Knowles and Daniel Nestor in 2004 and Nestor again with Nenad Zimonjic in 2008.
But with the Bryans going win-less in the Grand Slams this season, other teams have taken their opportunities. None more so that Rojer and Tecau, who can count victory in Rotterdam and semi-finals at the Australian Open and Roland Garros among their achievements in 2015.
“[Finishing No. 1] would be another great accomplishment,” added Rojer. “We know that the Bryans have had a stranglehold on the No. 1 ranking for a lot of years now and they’ve been the best team out there.
“So it would be definitely something to remember and it’s quickly turned into a goal of ours.”
The Barclays ATP World Tour Finals is likely to play a pivotal role in determining the year-end standings. However, between them, Rojer and Tecau have registered just two wins in 18 matches at The O2 and on their team debut last year, lost all three matches.
But both believe this year could be more successful. Having qualified earlier than normal, Rojer and Tecau are hoping that a less hectic run-in, without chasing points at every turn, will benefit them.
“Personally I haven’t played my best tennis there,” said Rojer. “It’s always been bittersweet because you’re happy to have made it there, it means you’ve done something well throughout the year. But you want to showcase your best tennis in that moment as well. It’s going to be a great event again.
“We’re going to prepare a little bit differently than we have in the past. Luckily we qualified earlier so we don’t have the pressure going into the event. I think that will pay dividends in the end. The last few years we’ve had to play every week to make it, so we haven’t had the freedom of controlling practices and schedule as we would like. It’s a really nice accomplishment and it’s one of the goals we had at the beginning of the year. That we can tick that one off also feels really nice.”
Tecau added, “In previous years it was always a fight till the end to get to London. Now we managed to qualify fairly early. Going into these last few weeks of the year, our main goal is to do well and win in London. We’re going to try and schedule our practice and tournament weeks to peak in London. This year, just like we did with the slams, we want to put the emphasis on London and give our best tennis there.”