New Team Wins Five Titles In 2009

© Getty ImagesCermak and Mertinak celebrate their fifth title of 2009 at the Valencia Open 500.

First-year team Frantisek Cermak and Michal Mertinak have won five titles in their debut season together.

2009 In Review

In their debut season together, Frantisek Cermak and Michal Mertinak have won five ATP World Tour titles – four on clay - and are on track to notch 50 match wins as a team. The Czech and Slovak duo is finishing the year strongly. Since the US Open the team has reached three finals, winning Bucharest and Valencia and finishing runner-up in Moscow.

Cermak and Mertinak joined forces at the beginning of the 2009 ATP World Tour season and quickly made an impact, reaching their first final together in February at the Movistar Open in Vina del Mar, where they finished runner-up to Pablo Cuevas and Brian Dabul. They then won their next four finals, capturing titles at the Abierto Mexicano Telcel in Acapulco (d. Kubot-Marach), the MercedesCup in Stuttgart (d. Hanescu-Tecau), the ATP Studena Croatia Open (d. Brunstrom-Rojer) in Umag and the BCR Open Romania (d. Brunstrom-Rojer).

Their winning streak in finals eventually ended at the Kremlin Cup in Moscow, when they lost 10-8 in the match tie-break to Pablo Cuevas and Marcel Granollers. In the second-to-last week of the season, Cermak and Mertinak greatly boosted their chances of qualifying for London by winning the Valencia Open 500 (d. Granollers/Robredo).

“I’m very satisfied,” Cermak said of the team’s strong finish to the year. “We did not start well at the beginning of the season; I had an injury all of December. But the last couple of months we have been playing very solid and I’m very happy for it.”

The 32-year-old Cermak has won 21 ATP World Tour titles; Mertinak, 29, has won 11 ATP World Tour finals.

Finals History

Both players are making their Finals debut.