Pavic/Marach Continue Senational Season, Advance To Roland Garros Final

No doubles team has been as dominant as Oliver Marach and Mate Pavic in 2018. The Austrian-Croatian tandem has already won four tour-level titles out of six finals, soaring to No. 1 (Pavic) and No. 2 (Marach) in the ATP Doubles Rankings.

And on Saturday, they will have a chance to earn their second Grand Slam championship of the season, after defeating No. 12 seeds Feliciano Lopez and Marc Lopez 6-4, 7-5 in the Roland Garros semi-finals. The second seeds broke three times to advance after one hour, 32 minutes.

Marach and Pavic now have 36 match wins as a team this season. The pair has gained a sizeable lead in the ATP Doubles Race To London, guaranteeing that regardless of the result in the final, they will sit in first by at least 1,295 points.

It appeared that Marach and Pavic would need to win their third consecutive three-setter, as the Spaniards broke for a 5-3 lead in the second set. But the favourites strung together the final four games of the match, breaking twice and losing just one point on serve, to advance to the final on the Parisian terre battue.

The championship match will be a difficult one, as Marach and Pavic look to beat home favourites Pierre-Hugues Herbert and Nicolas Mahut. Less than four months ago, the Frenchmen ended Marach and Pavic’s 17-0 start to the campaign in the final of the ABN Amro World Tennis Tournament.

Herbert and Mahut have won both of their FedEx ATP Head2Head meetings against their final opponents, and are seeking their third Grand Slam trophy (2015 US Open, 2016 Wimbledon). Marach and Pavic, on the other hand, are the reigning Australian Open titlists.

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