BNP Parisbas Masters – The race for the last remaining doubles spots in London

Written by: Global Chick on 9th November 2011

BNP Parisbas Masters – The race for the last remaining doubles spots in London |

With only one remaining spot left for the Barclays ATP World Tour Finals in London the doubles competition at the BNP Parisbas Masters in Paris will be fierce.

Seven teams have already qualified for the event. The last two teams to earn spots were Horia Tecau and Robert Lindstedt and Rohan Bopanna and Aisam-Ul-Haq Qureshi.

There are three teams competing for the last place. Eric Butorac/Jean-Julian Rojer, Marisuz Fyrstenberg/Marcin Matkowski and Marcelo Melo and Bruno Soares.

The Brazilians Melo and Soares must win the Paris title to qualify. They also need Butorac and Rojer to lose early in the draw and not let the Polish team get any further than a quarterfinals.

Melo and Soares had a first round win over Lukasz Kubot and Florian Mayer 6-4 6-3 on Tuesday. They will play the number five seeds Lindstedt and Tecau in the second round.

French wildcards Julien Benneteau and Nicolas Mahut breezed through their first round defeating Tour veterans Mark Knowles and Xavier Malisse 6-3 6-3. The French team is up against super team Bob and Mike Bryan in the next round.

Frantisek Cermak and Filip Polasek are ranked No. 11 in the YTD rankings and have no chance of qualifying for London. They continued their Paris campaign beating Croatian team Marin Cilic and Ivan Dodig easily 6-2 6-3. They will clash with the number three seeds Max Mirnyi and Daniel Nestor.

The following teams have qualified for the London showdown:

Bob & Mike Bryan

Michael Llodra & Nenad Zimonjic

Daniel Nestor & Max Mirnyi

Mahesh Bhupathi & Leander Paes

Robert Lindstedt & Horia Tecau

Jurgen Melzer & Philipp Petzschner

Rohan Bopanna & Aisam-Ul-Haq Qureshi