Fabio Fognini and Simone Bolelli, this year’s Australian Open champions, qualified for the doubles final at the Shanghai Rolex Master. The Italians fought back from a set down to edge past Edouard Roger Vasselin and Daniel Nestor with 5-7 7-6 (7-5) 10-3 to reach their fourth final of the year. With this win Fognini and Bolelli have qualified for the ATP World Finals at the O2 Arena in London. The Italian team have scored 4895 points in the ATP Ranking. In the Shanghai final they will face Raven Klaasen and Marcelo Melo who followed up their triumph in Tokyo with a three-set win over Rohan Bopanna and Lukasz Kubot with the score of 6-3 6-7 (1-7) 10-7. Klaasen and Melo fended off six of seven break point chances
Fognini and Bolelli have a 2-3 record in their doubles finals as a team. After their triumph at the Australian Open the Italians reached three finals at Indian Wells, Monte-Carlo and Shanghai and the semifinal at the Roland Garros. In his career Fognini will play his 11th doubles final with a 3-7 record. Bolelli has a 4-4 record before his ninth doubles final
Fognini and Bolelli are the first Italian doubles team in history to reach the Masters or ATP Finals . Only Adriano Panatta and Corrado Barazzutti played in the Masters in the singles respectively in 1975 and 1978.
