Mektic/Pavic Retain Eastbourne Title
Top seeds Nikola Mektic and Mate Pavic completed a British trophy double on Friday, following up last week's triumph at the Queen's Club with a successful title defence at the Rothesay International.
The Croatians defeated Matwe Middelkoop and Luke Saville 6-4, 6-2 in the Eastbourne final to win their fourth title of the 2022 ATP Tour season, all coming in the past two months.They did not drop a set this week and will now look to defend their 2021 Wimbledon title.
"We played good in Queen's we played even better here," Mektic said post-match, "so we're very comfortable now going into Wimbledon." The 33-year-old also explained how the pair's challenging Queen's Club run — in which they came from a set down to win a Match Tie-break in their last three matches — gave them confidence to dominate this week.
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In the final, Metkic/Pavic won the opening set behind an early break, then saved two break points to hold for 2-2 in the second and spark a run of five straight games to close out the contest.
After winning nine tour-level titles in their first season as a team in 2021, the pair won its first trophy of this season at the Internazionali BNL d'Italia in Rome. Since claiming that ATP Masters 1000 title, they went on to win in Geneva ahead of a third-round run at Roland Garros.
"We needed to get back the confidence, added Pavic. "When we did finally in Rome, it opened up a little bit. We won the title and then obviously from Rome we lost just one match in the French and were on a good run. We have confidence, we're playing well. We're going to be an interesting team at Wimbledon."
Matos/Vega Hernandez Reach Mallorca Final
Brazil's Rafael Matos and Spain's David Vega Hernandez upset top seeds Marcelo Arevalo and Jean-Julien Rojer Friday to advance to the Mallorca Championships final. After taking out the Roland Garros champions 6-4, 3-6, 10-7, the pair will face Gonzalo Escobar and Ariel Behar in Saturday's final.
Escobar and Behar won their semi-final on Thursday, 6-4, 6-2 against Matthew Ebden and Philipp Oswald.
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