Melzer & Petzschner Capture Second Major Title

© Getty ImagesPhilipp Petzschner and Jurgen Melzer won their second major title together.

Ninth seeds Jurgen Melzer and Philipp Petzschner captured their second Grand Slam championship together on Saturday night in New York as they defeated sixth seeds Mariusz Fyrstenberg and Marcin Matkowski 6-2, 6-2 in the US Open final.

The Austrian-German tandem won their first major title in just their seventh tournament together at Wimbledon in 2010 (d. Lindstedt-Tecau). They have won five titles together overall, having also triumphed this season at Rotterdam (d. Llodra-Zimonjic) and Stuttgart (d. Granollers-M. Lopez).

"From the word go, we were playing really well," said Melzer. "The opponents were a little bit nervous from the beginning and we fully used that to our advantage."

Petzschner added, "Winning another slam is an amazing feeling. We're both really happy the way it turned out."

Victory gives Melzer and Petzschner a strong chance of qualifying for the year-end Barclays ATP World Tour Finals. They are currently eighth in the 2011 ATP Doubles Team Rankings, just inside the qualification spots. They made their debut at the season finale last year, but failed to advance past the round robin stage.

Watch: Getting To Know Melzer & Petzschner   

After an exhilarating day of action on Arthur Ashe Stadium, the doubles final did not get underway until close to midnight, but it did not throw Melzer and Petzschner off their game. The ninth seeds went up a double break inside five minutes, with Petzschner scorching returns and the under-fire Poles both double faulting. Petzschner closed out the set on serve in the eighth game after 22 minutes.

Another double fault from Fyrstenberg saw the Poles surrender their serve in the third game of the second set. They managed to draw level immediately, breaking Petzschner’s serve, but their respite was shortlived as a lob winner from Melzer regained the break advantage for his team in the fifth game. The Austrian-German duo then broke the Fyrstenberg serve again in the seventh game and served out victory in 49 minutes.

Fyrstenberg and Matkowski had defeated 2010 runners-up Rohan Bopanna and Aisam-Ul-Haq Qureshi in the semi-finals to reach their first Grand Slam final, and were bidding to become just the second Polish Grand Slam champions after Wojtek Fibak won the 1979 Australian Open doubles crown.

The Poles were contesting their first tour-level final since reaching four back-to-back finals in autumn of last year and dropped to an 11-19 mark. 

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