Murray/Soares Need 11 M.P. To Advance In Stuttgart

Second seeds Jamie Murray and Bruno Soares fought off a potentially miraculous comeback from Brian Baker and Nikola Mektic on Wednesday at the Mercedes Cup in Stuttgart, converting on their 11th match point to reach the semi-finals 6-4, 6-7(8), 10-8.

Baker/Mektic fought off a match point in the second at 4-5, three more at 5-6 and rallied from 3/6 down in the tie-break. They survived an eighth match point at 6/7 before converting on their second set point at 9/8 to even the score.

But Murray/Soares refused to fold, racing to a 9/6 lead in the Match Tie-break. Two more match points came and went before the second seeds finally wrapped up the contest in one hour and 39 minutes. Next up for Murray/Soares in the final four are Marcin Matkowski and Max Mirnyi or wild cards Tommy Haas and Florian Mayer.

Joining Murray/Soares are fourth seeds Oliver Marach and Mate Pavic, who defeated Nicholas Monroe and Artem Sitak 6-4, 7-6(4). Marach/Pavic are looking to reach their first ATP World Tour doubles final of 2017 after semi-final finishes in Memphis, Acapulco and Lyon.

In first-round doubles action, Marcus Daniell and Marcelo Demoliner won the first five games, but eventually edged past Serbians Viktor Troicki and Nenad Zimonjic 6-1, 3-6, 10-7 in 61 minutes. Zimonjic is two match wins shy of 700 career victories. Awaiting them in the quarter-finals are top seeds Bob Bryan and Mike Bryan or Bernard Tomic and Mischa Zverev.