TennisNH

New Team Mektic/Pavic Make A Winning Start In Antalya

08-Jan-2021 15:56:00 | ATP World Tour

Nikola Mektic and Mate Pavic are one of the new doubles teams to watch on the ATP Tour this year. The Croatians showed why on Friday.

Mektic and Pavic battled past Jiri Vesely and Tristan-Samuel Weissborn 6-4, 5-7, 10-6 for a place in the quarter-finals of the Antalya Open. The top seeds will next face Nikoloz Basilashvili and Andre Begemann, who were 6-2, 6-3 victors over Turkish wild cards Umut Akkoyun and Mert Naci Turker.

Mektic and Pavic both competed in last year’s Nitto ATP Finals, but with different partners. Mektic won the season finale alongside Wesley Koolhof, and Pavic and Bruno Soares finished as the year-end No. 1 doubles team.

Kazakhstanis Alexander Bublik and Andrey Golubev held their nerve in a tense finale at the end of the day against David Goffin and Pierre-Hugues Herbert. Bublik and Golubev recovered from 1/4 down in the Match Tie-break and saved one match point at 9/10 en route to a 6-3, 0-6, 12/10 victory.

On Thursday, Goffin saved five match points against Herbert in the first round of the singles draw.