Two-time doubles Roland Garros champions Kevin Krawietz and Andreas Mies beat Lukasz Kubot and Marcelo Melo 6-2 7-6 (7-5) to improve to 1-1 in Group Mike Bryan.
The German team are bidding to qualify for the ATP Finals doubles tournament for the first time.
Krawietz and Mies avenged their recent semifinal loss to Kubot and Melo at last October’s Erste Bank Open in Vienna and drew level to 1-1 in their head-to-head clashes.
Krawietz and Melo hit return winners to break in two of their three return games. The 2019 and 2020 Roland Garros champions dropped serve at 4-1, but they earned their third break with another return winner before serving serving out the first set 6-2 after 30 minutes.
Both teams went on serve en route to the tie-break. Krawietz earned two mini-breaks to clinch the tie-break after 1 hour and 23 minutes.
Kubot and Melo, who reached the final in 2017, drop to 0-2 in Group Mike Bryan after losing to Rajeev Ram and Joe Salisbury on Sunday. They will take on Wesley Koolhof and Nikola Mektic in their third round match.
“It was a big advantage to get off to a good start today, because it was pretty painful to lose that match two days ago from a good position. We had it in our hands and we let it slip because we didn’t go for it in the end. We were hoping for them to make errors and that was a big mistake. The key today was to come out, go for it, get the win ourselves and not wait for errors. That was very good and the start helped for sure”, said Mies.
