Rafael Nadal and Pablo Carreño Busta came back from a one-set down on Sunday to capture the China Open doubles title, their first tournament victory together.
They defeated Jack Sock and Bernard Tomic 6-7(6), 6-2, 10-8 in 89 minutes. After losing the first set in the tie-break despite breaking to take the advantage early on, the Spaniards made no mistake in the second, breaking twice to force the decider. Sock and Tomic were quickly ahead in the match tie-breaker (3-0), but once the Spaniards levelled at 4-4 the advantage swung one way then the other in a series of tense exchanges until Nadal & Carreño finally sealed the victory 10-8.
The Spanish duo started their tournament by defeating No.3-seeded Bopanna/Nestor before defeating the Chinese pairing of Gong/Ze to reach the semis where they dismissed the favourites, the USA's Bob & Mike Bryan, 7-5, 6-4.
It was 11th ATP doubles title for Rafa and his second of the season, adding to the gold medal he won at the Rio Olympics with Marc López in August.
Both Nadal and Carreño went out of the singles tournament in Beijing at the quarter-final stage - Nadal losing to Grigor Dimitrov, and Carrenño falling to Milos Raonic. David Ferrer made it one stage further, losing in the semi-finals in straight sets to Britain's Andy Murray.
Over in Tokyo, another Spaniard, Marcel Granollers, lifted the Japan Open Tennis Championships doubles trophy with Marcin Matkowski, a first-time team that began with a text message.
“I was at home in Spain during the US Open and sent Marcin a text, because I was looking for a partner in Tokyo,” said Granollers, who teamed with the big-hitting Pole to defeat Raven Klaasen and Rajeev Ram 6-2, 7-6(4) on Sunday. “He was still playing in New York and I was already out. I knew he is a great player, and I’m happy he accepted.”
The duo found instant chemistry in their first tournament together, upsetting the No. 3 seeds Dominic Inglot and Jean-Julien Rojer in a match tie-break before sweeping their final two matches in straight sets. Despite playing mostly with Polish and Spanish-speaking partners respectively, Matkowski and Granollers did not find the adjustment difficult to make.
“We both speak good English, so it was not a problem to communicate on the court,” Matkowski said. “I’ve always played the ad court on returns and Marcel likes to play on the deuce side, so that was easy to sort out as well.”
Next stop on the ATP World Tour is the Shanghai Rolex Masters, the penultimate Masters 1000 event ahead of the World Tour Finals in London in November.
