Murray/Soares Reach Tokyo Final; Isner/Sock Advance In Beijing

Jamie Murray and Bruno Soares edged a high-quality doubles semi-final on Friday to remain on course at the Rakuten Japan Open Tennis Championships 2017. Soares is now one match win away from 400 career victories.

Second seeds Murray and Soares scraped past Dominic Inglot and Daniel Nestor 6-7(3), 6-1, 11-9 in 87 minutes for a place in the Tokyo final.

Murray first served on match point at 9/8 in the Match tie-break, but Inglot poached for a superb backhand volley at close quarters. Two points later, on Murray and Soares’ second match point, Soares struck a crosscourt backhand lob to seal victory.

Murray and Soares move up one spot to No. 4 in the Emirates ATP Doubles Race To London, adding 120 points for a total of 4,460 points, as teams battle to qualify for the Nitto ATP Finals, to be held at The O2 in London from 12-19 November.

Murray and Soares, the only seeds left in the field, have a 3-2 finals record this year (7-4 overall as a team). They await the winners of Santiago Gonzalez and Julio Peralta versus local wild cards Ben Mclachlan and Yasutaka Uchiyama, who play their semi-final on Saturday.

Isner/Sock Advance In Beijing

The unseeded American pairing of John Isner and Jack Sock continued to cause destruction in the China Open doubles draw on Friday. Isner/Sock knocked out Nitto ATP Finals hopefuls Juan Sebastian Cabal and Robert Farah 6-7(5), 6-2, 10-6 to make the Beijing semi-finals.

Cabal/Farah had upset second seeds Lukasz Kubot and Marcelo Melo in the first round and were looking to gain crucial points in the Emirates ATP Doubles Race To London. The Colombian team is 12th in the Race; the top eight teams qualify.

Isner/Sock, who won the 2016 Shanghai Rolex Masters together, started the week by ousting fourth seeds Oliver Marach and Mate Pavic. In the semi-finals, Isner/Sock will meet either top seeds Henri Kontinen/John Peers or Italian Paolo Lorenzi and Mischa Zverev of Germany.