Felix Auger-Aliassime and Hubert Hurkacz ended the six-game winning streak of Lukasz Kubot and Marcelo Melo on Saturday and reached their first double-final at the Rolex Paris Masters. The unset pair won 59 percent of the return points on second serve (17-10), defeating Kubot and Melo in 66 minutes with 6-2, 1-6, 10-5.
Auger-Aliassime and Hurkacz are playing together for the second time after reaching the quarter-finals at the ABN AMRO World Tennis Tournament in February. Last week’s Viennese champions Kubot and Melo are now preparing for their fourth team appearance in a row at the Nitto ATP finals in London.
The Polish-Brazilian duo qualified for the event by defeating Pierre-Hugues Herbert and Nicolas Mahut in the quarter-finals in Paris. Auger-Aliassime and Hurkacz will face the US Open champions Mate Pavic and Bruno Soares or the London competitors Jürgen Melzer and Edouard Roger-Vasselin in the final.
Melzer and Roger-Vasselin will secure the last qualifying place for the Nitto ATP Finals if they defeat Pavic and Soares in the semifinals.
Kubot and Melo prepare to win everything in London
Lukasz Kubot and Marcelo Melo are the seventh qualified doubles team for the Nitto ATP Finals 2020, which will take place from 15.
to November 22nd at The O2 Arena in London. The Polish-Brazilian duo secured their place after beating Pierre-Hugues Herbert and Nicolas Mahut 6: 7 (4), 6: 3, 10: 8 at the Rolex Paris Masters on Friday.
Kubot and Melo have two ATP 500 titles in 2020 at the Mexican Open (they defeated Cabal / Farah) in February and also at the Erste Bank Open in Vienna last week (they defeated J. Murray / N. Skupski). They also took second place at the bett1HULKS Indoors in Cologne last month (lost to Herbert / Mahut).
The pair have a 14-11 record in the ATP Tour Finals. Melo has qualified for the prestigious season finale for the eighth time in a row (since 2013). Six years ago, the Brazilian reached the London final with Ivan Dodig (he lost to the Bryan brothers).
Kubot has participated in the O2 Arena in London six times (2009, 2010, 2014, 2017-2019). In November 2017 they finished together with Melo as the number 1 couple at the end of the year and reached the finals (they lost to Kontinen / Peers). Photo credit: Rolex Paris Masters
