Jaziri/Albot End Defending Champions’ Reign

Jean-Julien Rojer and Horia Tecau’s bid for back-to-back US Open titles is over with Malek Jaziri and Radu Albot saving a match point to advance to the third round on Friday. In just their second tournament together, Jaziri/Albot prevailed 3-6, 7-6(8), 6-2.

The Tunisian-Moldovan partnership had lost in the first round at Wimbledon last month and only won their first match together on Thursday, when they edged past British brothers Ken and Neal Skupski. 

Against Rojer/Tecau they were up against one of the most in-form duos this summer. The Dutch-Romanian pair had defended their Winston-Salem Open title on Sunday and was bidding for a third Grand Slam title together.

Jaziri/Albot saved a match point at 7/8 in the second-set tie-break and levelled at a set a piece on their fifth set point. They will next meet unseeded brothers Christian Harrison and Ryan Harrison.

The Americans took down Spanish 10th seeds Feliciano Lopez and Marc Lopez 6-2, 4-6, 6-3. The Harrison brothers had ended Daniel Nestor’s Grand Slam career on Thursday with a straight-sets victory over the Canadian and Bradley Klahn.

Maximo Gonzalez and Nicolas Jarry continued a day of upsets in the doubles draw. The Argentine-Chilean pair brought down No. 8 seeds Raven Klaasen and Michael Venus 6-3, 7-6(5). 

Gonzalez/Jarry had stunned then No. 3 seeds Henri Kontinen and John Peers in the first round at Wimbledon. They will meet Andres Molteni and Roman Jebavy for a place in the quarter-finals.

A day after their huge upset of top seeds Oliver Marach and Mate Pavic, Leonardo Mayer and Joao Sousa were unable to back-up the breakthrough. The Argentine-Portuguese partnership fell 6-3, 6-3 to Jurgen Melzer and Nikola Mektic on Friday.