Cuevas-Granollers Edge London Finals Contenders For Moscow Title

Third seed Pablo Cuevas and Marcel Granollers won their first ATP World Tour team title at the Kremlin Cup in Moscow on Sunday.

Cuevas and Granollers converted one of eight break point opportunities, but held their nerve in the Match tie-break to defeat top seeds Frantisek Cermak of the Czech Republic and Slovak Michal Mertinak 4-6, 7-5, 10-8 in 85 minutes.

“I am very happy, this is a great tournament and it’s nice to end on such a good note,” said Cuevas, who was appearing in his fourth doubles final (3-1) and his first on a hard-court. “Marcel and I have played together only a few times and we’ve always done well, but this is our first title together. We had a great time this week.”

It is Cuevas and Granollers’ fourth ATP World Tour tournament as a team (11-3 match record overall). They made a successful debut at in April 2008, by reaching the US Men's Clay Court Championship final in Houston.

Granollers improved to 3-1 in doubles finals and he was contesting his first non-clay-court final. This year, he won titles at the Brasil Open in Costa do Sauipe (w/Robredo) and the Copa Telmex in Buenos Aires (w/A. Martin).

Cermak and Mertinak, who won 70 per cent of service points and hit four aces, dropped to 4-2 in ATP World Tour doubles finals this year.

They captured clay-court titles at the Abierto Mexicano Telcel in Acapulco, the MercedesCup in Stuttgart, the ATP Studena Croatia Open in Umag and the BCR Open Romania in Bucharest. The duo also reached the Movistar Open in Vina del Mar.

Cermak was attempting to earn his 21st career ATP World Tour title (20-14 overall) and Mertinak his 11th ATP World Tour title (10-3).

The duo is No. 9 in the ATP Doubles Team Ranking and they are trying to earn a spot in the year-ending Barclays ATP World Tour Finals in London next month.