Top Seeds Murray/Venus Claim Banja Luka Doubles Title

Jamie Murray and Michael Venus claimed their second ATP Tour title as a team with a 7-5, 6-2 win against Francisco Cabral and Aleksandr Nedovyesov in Saturday’s Srpska Open final. The British-Kiwi pair, which has exclusively played together this season, did not face a break point in the title match behind an 82 per cent win rate on both first and second serve.

The reigning Dallas champions improved to 2-1 this year in finals (Adelaide-I) with the victory, having reached the title match after saving a match point against in the quarter-finals against Gonzalo Escobar and Diego Hidalgo. The trophy is Murray’s 29th and Venus’ 19th at tour-level.

“It’s our second title together which is cool. It’s only April,” Murray said post-match. “There’s a big swing coming up with a lot of ranking points on offer, a lot of big events. I think for us to come here and put together four really good matches is good news for us going forward. Hopefully we can keep that momentum going.”

Their four wins this week moved Murray/Venus up five spots to 10th place in the Pepperstone ATP Live Doubles Teams Rankings, putting them within touching distance of the Nitto ATP Finals qualifying spots.

“I think [Turin] is our goal,” Murray added. “I think that most of the teams’ goal at the start of the year is to try to qualify for Turin. We’ve both been fortunate to play at that event in the past a few times. I think for the doubles guys it is a special event. It’s one that everyone wants to be part of.

“We know if we want to do that we’ve got to win a lot of matches, and this makes a good start.”

Discussing the ATP 250’s new location in Banja Luka, Venus said he enjoyed the week both on and off the court: “We’ve had great time. I think everything to do with the tournament has been amazingly run and set up. We’ve been super comfortable and really enjoyed our time here.”

Cabral and Nedovyesov were competing together for the first time this week and knocked off the third and second seeds in consecutive matches to reach the final. Cabral was seeking his third tour-level doubles title while Nedovyesov was bidding for his first.