Kubot-Marach Capture Fourth Title In Santiago

© César Pincheira/Movistar OpenMarach (left) and Kubot collect their fourth ATP World Tour doubles title as a team, and first of 2010.

Lukasz Kubot and Oliver Marach captured their first ATP World Tour title of the season in emphatic style Saturday as they crushed Italian-Argentine duo Potito Starace and Horacio Zeballos 6-4, 6-0 in the final of the Movistar Open, the first tournament of the Latin American “Golden Swing”, in Santiago.

Victory sees Kubot and Marach awarded with 250 ATP World Tour Doubles Ranking points and $21,650 in prize money.

The top seeds were rarely troubled against the first-time pairing of Starace and Zeballos. They converted five of 11 break points to counter losing their own serve and dropped just four points on serve in the second set as they wrapped up victory in just 66 minutes.

"We're happy to take the title in Santiago," Kubot said. "It's my first time in Chile and I really liked the tournament and the city. We had tough matches thorough the week and today we played a very good match from beginning to end."

The Polish-Austrian duo won its first three ATP World Tour titles last season, triumphing at the Grand Prix Hassan II in Casablanca, the Serbia Open 2009 in Belgrade and the Bank Austria TennisTrophy in Vienna.

After going 3-1 in doubles finals last year, Kubot and Marach qualified for the prestigious Barclays ATP World Tour Finals in London and finished at No. 7 in the ATP Doubles Team Rankings.

"We want to qualify for London once again and I think the title in Santiago puts us a step closer towards our goal," Marach said.

The 27-year-old Kubot won his fourth ATP World Tour doubles title from seven finals, while Marach, 29, captured his sixth title from 11 finals.

Rookie pairing Karol Beck and Harel Levy reached their first ATP World Tour doubles final after edging Belgian duo Steve Darcis and Xavier Malisse 7-5, 4-6, 10-7 in the semi-finals of the SA Tennis Open, an ATP World Tour 250 hard-court tennis tournament in Johannesburg.

The 27-year-old Beck from Slovakia will contest his first ATP World Tour doubles final, while the 31-year-old Levy, from Israel, will look to win his second title after lifting the trophy 10 years ago at the Campbell’s Hall of Fame Tennis Championships with countryman Jonathan Erlich. 

In the final they will face Indian Rohan Bopanna and Aisam-Ul-Haq Qureshi of Pakistan.

The doubles final at the PBZ Zagreb Indoors will be a battle of two unseeded teams after Jurgen Melzer and Philipp Petzschner upset No. 3 seeds Martin Damm and Filip Polasek, 7-6(4), 6-4.

Fellow finalists Arnaud Clement and Olivier Rochus won their semi-final at the ATP World Tour 250 indoor hard-court tournament on Friday.