Top seeds and 2020 US champion Mate Pavic and Bruno Soares came back from one set down to beat Jurgen Melzer and Edouard Roger Vasselin 6-7 (6-8) 6-1 10-4 after 1 hour and 23 minutes in their first match of the doubles tournament at the Nitto ATP Finals at the ATP Finals in London.
Pavic and Soares earned the first set point at 6-5 in the tie-break of the opening set but they failed to convert it. A few points later Melzer and Roger Vasselin converted their first set point to win a hard-fought first set.
Pavic and Soares reeled off the first five games of the second set before serving out the second set in the seventh game to force the match to the decider.
Melzer and Roger Vasselin took a 3-2 lead in the Match Tie-Break, but Pavic and Soares reeled off six consecutive points to open up a 8-3 lead. “I think we played really well throughout the whole match. We had a couple of chances in the first set but they served really well. By the end, in the tie-break, Jurgen came up some match to deserve the set. The key point for us was to keep the energy up. We came right away in the second set, playing some good, aggressive tennis with some positive energy and we carried that through to the end of the match”, said Bruno Soares.
