Murray/Peers clinch Belgrade crown, Arends/Johnson rally to Metz title
Top seeds Jamie Murray and John Peers wrapped up another strong week by clinching their second title together this season at the Belgrade Open on Saturday.
The British-Australian pair displayed solid form in the championship match and staged a comeback to oust fourth seeds Ivan Dodig and Skander Mansouri 3-6, 7-6(5), 11-9, in their maiden Lexus ATP Head2Head meeting.
Murray and Peers maintained a near-perfect record and dropped their only set of the week in the final. The duo won 76 per cent (32/42) of their first-serve points, converted one break point out of five opportunities, and emerged victorious in one hour and 36 minutes.
With the win, they claimed their eighth title as a team. The pair, who teamed for the first time since 2016 in August this year, also won the Swiss Indoors Basel trophy in October.
[ATP APP]Arends/Johnson clinch Metz crown
Sander Arends and Luke Johnson ended Pierre-Hugues Herbert and Albano Olivetti’s hopes of winning a title together on home soil at the Moselle Open on Saturday.
The Dutch-British pair rallied to defeat Herbert and Olivetti 6-4, 3-6, 10-3 to clinch the Moselle Open crown. Buoyed by the home support, Herbert and Olivetti’s second-set comeback wasn’t enough, as Arends and Johnson proved too strong to seal their first tour-level title as a team.
The two fended off the challenge posed by the Frenchmen in one hour and 18 minutes. They fired 10 aces and saved five of the seven break points they faced.
“It was really difficult for us to play against you today,” said Arends in the post-match interview. “I felt like I didn’t play [against] two guys, I played against [about] 2000 guys.”
Herbert and Olivetti were aiming to become the first all-French team to clinch the title in Metz since Nicolas Mahut and Edouard Roger-Vasselin achieved the feat in 2018.
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