The number nine seeds Austrian Jurgen Melzer and German Philipp Petzschner won their second Grand Slam title today at the US Open. They overpowered the number six seeds Mariusz Fyrstenberg and Marcin Matkowski of Poland.
It was a straight set win 6-2 6-2 for the Austrian/German team in today’s final on Arthur Ashe Stadium. The US Open Champions won Wimbledon last year despite only teaming up for seven tournaments previous to Wimbledon.
Melzer and Petzschner have won two titles this year in Stuttgart and Rotterdam. They have now won five tournaments as a team and two of them are Grand Slams. Melzer has won eleven career titles and Petzschner four career titles.
There were some surprising losses this year by the seeded teams. The solid Bryan Brothers lost in the first round to Ivo Karlovic of Croatia and Frank Moser of Germany. The Italian team of Simone Bolelli and Fabio Fognini took out experienced team Mark Knowles of the Bahamas and Xavier Malisse of Belgium in the third round before losing in the semi-final to Melzer and Petzschner. They also sent the number seven seeds Horia Tecau of Romania and Robert Lindstedt of Sweden packing in the quarterfinals. The number two seeds Max Mirnyi of Belarus and Daniel Nestor of Canada loss unexpectedly in the second round to British team Colin Fleming and Ross Hutchins.
This was the Polish team’s first Grand Slam final and their opponents where fully aware of that. “From the word go, we were playing really well. The opponents were a little bit nervous from the beginning and we fully used that to our advantage,” Melzer said.
Today’s final started close to midnight. Melzer and Petzschner got a double break and won the first set in just 22 minutes. The Polish duo lost serve in the opening game of the second set. Fyrstenberg and Matkowski broke straight back, breaking Petzschner’s serve to level. The Champions broke again in the third game and then a third time to close out the second set and the match.
After today’s victory it looks like Melzer and Petzschner will be qualify for the Barclays ATP World Tour Finals at the end of the year.
Philipp Petzschner said, “Winning another slam is an amazing feeling. We’re both really happy the way it turned out.” The Champions should be happy with their title win today – they get to share US$420 000.