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Nestor and Fyrstenberg men’s doubles champs

Update 6:45 pm: The opening match at Pat Rafter Arena on Sunday featured two highly accomplished pairs playing for the men’s doubles title at Brisbane International 2014.
5 January 2014, by David Packman

The opening match at Pat Rafter Arena on Sunday featured two highly accomplished pairs playing for the men’s doubles title at Brisbane International 2014.

After a closely fought match in front of a burgeoning crowd, second seeds Mariusz Fyrstenberg from Poland and Daniel Nestor of Canada took the honours 6-7(4) 6-4 [10-7] over Colombian fourth seeds Juan Sebastian Cabal and Robert Farah. 

“It was a tough match, just like all week,” said Nestor after the match. “We had tough opponents today and we just hung in there, taking one point at a time.”

“There were moments where the other team looked like they were going to take it and we just hung in there and managed to play better in the end.”

Fyrstenberg and Nestor need little introduction to doubles fans as individuals, yet 2014 sees them playing together for the first time.

“[Matkowski] usually doesn’t like to play in the first week [of the year] and my partner Zemonjic likes to start the year in Doha,” explained Nestor.

“It made much more sense for me to come to Australia right away and prepare for the heat.”

Nestor, at age 41, is clearly the most experienced doubles man on the ATP Tour, having reached the coveted world No.1 on numerous occasions over the course of his career and amassing a whopping 135 finals appearances, now with 82 titles to his name.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the net, the Colombian pair may be slightly less credentialed but have been playing together for several years, achieving some solid results.

The duo also knocked out Roger Federer and Nicolas Mahut in straight sets in their semifinal on Saturday.

The highly entertaining match delivered all the skills one would expect with the only blemish on the way to a first-set tiebreaker being a single break point saved by Fyrstenberg and Nestor.

However, it was the Colombians who took charge from there, pocketing the first set.

The second set opened up a little, with a few more opportunities coming the way of both teams as the finish line loomed. But it was the experience of Nestor that shone through as he lifted his partner to take the second set and force the affair into a match tiebreaker.

As is often the case, especially in doubles, it came down to a sliver of brilliance and a couple of errant shots to decide the match and on this occasion it was Fyrstenberg and Nestor who came out on top, taking the title with a clever return forcing the Colombians to drag a volley into the net.