Mektic and Pavic Claim Eastbourne Title
Nikola Mektic and Mate Pavic’s dream season continued at the Viking International Eastbourne as they defeated third seeds Rajeev Ram and Joe Salisbury 6-4, 6-3 to win their seventh ATP Tour title of the year.
The Croatians, who have won ATP Masters 1000 titles in Miami, Monte-Carlo and Rome, are now 42-6 in their first year together.
"I am very happy with the title here after everything that has happened recently, getting ill in Paris,” Mektic said. “We are very happy with the way we came back, very fast, very quick. We found good form [this week].”
Pavic added: “I think we played an excellent match. We have played them three times and they are always tough matches. It goes back to a few points, we saved a couple of break points, and they didn’t.”
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The top seeds won 79 per cent (15/19) of their first-service points in the opening set and moved into a 4-2 lead to take control in Eastbourne. Mektic and Pavic saved break points in their following two service games as they won the opening set against the American-British team.
While the match remained on serve at the start of the second set, Mektic and Pavic found the breakthrough in the fifth game. They hit four aces in the match and were strong on serve in the second set, not facing a break point in the set on their way to the title.
Ram and Salisbury, who are No. 4 in the FedEx ATP Doubles Team Rankings, beat Juan Sebastian Cabal and Robert Farah in the semi-finals. However, they could not match the Croatian pair on Friday, losing in 63 minutes, moving to 21-11 on the season.