Nestor-Zimonjic End Partnership On A High Note

© Getty ImagesNenad Zimonjic and Daniel Nestor won the Barclays ATP World Tour Finals title for the second time.

Daniel Nestor and Nenad Zimonjic ended their three-year partnership on a high note Sunday as they were crowned champions of the Barclays ATP World Tour Finals for the second time. In a close final they defeated Mahesh Bhupathi and Max Mirnyi 7-6(6), 6-4 at The O2 in London.

It is the seventh title of the season for the Canadian-Serbian duo, whose earlier triumphs include lifting the trophies at on clay at Roland Garros and the ATP World Tour Masters 1000 tournament in Monte-Carlo.

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The second seeds, who saved one match point to defeat defending champions Bob Bryan and Mike Bryan in the semi-finals, also won the year-end championships at Shanghai in 2008.

Next year Nestor will team up with Mirnyi, while Zimonjic will join forces with France’s Michael Llodra. In the on-court trophy presentation Nestor joked: “We’ve had three amazing years. People wonder why we are splitting up. The truth is we play great tennis, but we really don’t like each other!” 

In the press conference the Canadian added, “We finished great. It's [been] a great partnership. We won three slams, two Barclays ATP World Tour Finals titles, a lot of individual Masters [1000] tournaments throughout the years, a lot of tournaments. Pretty good record in finals, too. [It's the] most successful partnership I've had. This is three years of winning a lot. Very solid play. Obviously too bad that we're not continuing. But at the same time we had a great run."

Nestor and Zimonjic were the team under pressure in the early stages. Nestor was forced to save two break points on his serve in the third game after lob from Mirnyi landed just inside the baseline. Zimonjic hit an overhead winner to bring the score back to a deciding deuce point, and Bhupathi netted his return on the second opportunity.

With neither team able to engineer a breakthrough, the set was decided on a tie-break in which Bhupathi and Mirnyi drew first blood to lead 5-3 as Zimonjic netted a backhand volley. A forehand volley long from Zimonjic on the 10th point gave the Indian-Belarusian duo two set points, but they failed to convert.

On Mirnyi’s serve Bhupathi hit his backhand volley long and Nestor saved the second set point on his serve with a forehand volley winner. An unreturned serve from the Serbian then gave the second seeds their first set point chance, which they converted as Mirnyi netted a backhand volley.

In the seventh game of the second set, Nestor and Zimonjic took control as they broke Bhupathi’s serve to 15 in a game featuring two double faults from the Indian. Zimonjic then went on to serve out the match, sealing victory with an unreturned serve after 81 minutes of play.

"It's nice to beat a team when they're playing at the top of their game, like we were," said Nestor. "Two teams that are confident coming into a good match, it's good tennis. It's nice to be able to win a match like that. I think there were a lot of tough points there in the first set, and even in the second. We played well on those big points. We both served well when we had to."

Zimonjic added, “I thought today to begin the match, Mahesh was playing really unbelievable with returns and some volleys that he's been hitting. We were lucky to win the first set in the tie-break. After that, I thought we felt more comfortable and we started making some returns. I was struggling in the first set. Daniel was playing pretty good. He was carrying us. And then after that, I thought we used the chance that we had and closed it out.”

Bhupathi and Mirnyi clinched their place at the Barclays ATP World Tour Finals for the third time after a strong finish to the season, which saw them reach the final in Valencia and win their only title of the year at the BNP Paribas Masters in Paris.

“It's been an amazing week to play the final match of the season,” said Bhupathi. “We would definitely have taken it if you had told us we would be playing the final today. We played well. We had our chances. We positioned ourselves, even though they were playing really well, to win the first set. With teams like this, you have to take your chance when you have it. We didn't. Unfortunately came out on the losing end.”